


Undeserved Favor

by Drownedinlight



Series: Other Philosophies [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-06-09 20:33:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6922372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drownedinlight/pseuds/Drownedinlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Woodward and Beatrix Allen meet in June of 2012. They fall in love and begin making a life together, despite their shared past and obstacles of family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's Nothing Romantic About Grocery Stores (or, Chance Meetings)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daughter_of_Scotland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_Scotland/gifts).



Tony’s broke as hell and it’s Friday night. He can’t go to the bar or the club, but he figures he has enough to buy a twelve pack of beer. He gets to the grocery store and she’s just standing there in the booze aisle. She has a basket full of food, and Tony wonders why she didn’t get a cart. She’s probably an impulse shopper. Tony snorts and turns back to his own selection.

His snort draws her attention and she looks over at him. She smiles at him, and Tony doesn’t know why but he smiles back. He’s not really in the habit of picking up girls at the grocery store and she’s definitely not his type. She’s wearing a green tank top and a long blue and white skirt. Her brown hair is sorta frizzy, but she has it pulled back as a pony tail at the nape of her neck. She’s kinda pretty though, and she almost looks familiar.

“Can’t decide,” she says, just as their eyes meet.

Tony spots a package of sausage in her basket. “Something mexican would go well with the chorizo,” he says, pulling the twelve pack he wants out of the cooler and shows it to her.

She scrunches her nose, which okay, is sort of adorable. “They only have twelve packs though. I really only drink a bottle at once and it’ll take me forever to finish.”

“Never bad to have beer around,” he says.

Now she snorts. “Maybe I should just invite you over, and we can share.”

Tony only shrugs. “Whatever you’re making sure looks a whole helluva lot better than what I’m having.” He waves the frozen meal at her.

“Now I have to invite you over,” she says, shaking her head at him. “I cannot in good conscience let someone over twenty eat a tv dinner.”

Tony laughs a little, smiling at her. “You always invite strange guys over to feed them?”

“No,” she says. She raises a single eyebrow while she looks him up and down. Tony knows she likes what she sees. “But you’re special.”

“Special, huh?” he asks. “Why’m I special.”

“Well, you’re bringing the beer. And you’re going to help me cook.”

“Am I?” Tony can’t see it--he barely even boils water.

“Yeah,” she says. “You are. I’m Beatrix by the way.”

“Tony.” He holds out his hand and they shake.

And the next thing Tony really knows is they’ve gone through checkout together, and then they’re in his beat up truck and Beatrix is giving him directions to her apartment.

She tells him to pull into the spot marked 308, and then they walk up the steps because an elderly couple is waiting on the elevator. When Beatrix gets him into the stairwell, she explains, “Not only is the elevator tiny, but they smell like cat pee.”

“Fuck, that’s gross,” says Tony. “Thanks for steering me away from that.”

“No worries,” she says as she trots up the stairs in front of him.

She has a nice ass, Tony thinks, as he watches her jog.

She has a nice everything, actually. Tony’s sort of glad that he went home with her and he wonders if he’s going to get laid tonight.

Beatrix unlocks her front door and kicks off her sandals by the front door. Her apartment is a studio, but it’s pretty big. She has enough room for a couch and a chair, and she has two walls almost covered with books. Her kitchen is separated by a wall on one side, with a window into the “living room,” and then a kind of counter that cuts off the space in front of her bed. She has a double bed, Tony notices. Easily big enough for two people.

“Make yourself at home,” she says, as she heads into the kitchen.

Tony takes off his shoes, but only because she did. He follows her into her kitchen, where she’s unpacking her two shopping bags. “I hope you know I can’t actually cook,” he says.

“You say that now,” says Beatrix, as she pulls a knife and cutting board out of one of her drawers.

“You’ll say it after,” says Tony.

When Beatrix laughs, she becomes absolutely beautiful. Oh yeah, Tony’s definitely going to get laid tonight. And Tony wants to get laid. But he also wants to make Beatrix laugh again and watch that beautiful smile light up her face.

So he listens to her when she says just to stir the chorizo around while it browns--not to fast, because you won’t give it enough time to cook--but not too slow, otherwise it burns. She’s cutting up artichokes, peppers, onions and a helluva lotta other stuff Tony didn’t think he realized until this moment just doesn’t come on pizza. She tells him to drain off some of the oil the chorizo makes and then throws in the peppers and onions in his pan, telling him to keep stirring. Tony’s stomach starts to growl, and Beatrix is pounding the hell out of some croutons.

Eventually they mix everything together, stuff them into the artichokes, top it with cheese, and leave them to bake for 20 minutes. Tony realizes, when Beatrix hands him a beer, that he hasn’t touched one all night. He didn’t--he hadn’t known nights could be like this. That he could enjoy something so mundane, so ritual--and he had. He enjoyed every moment of cooking and trying to make Beatrix laugh again. And nothing was burned. So far.

Tony sits on the couch next to Beatrix, who is fiddling with Netflix on her tv. “You have a table in this place?” he asks.

“I have one in the closet that folds out for when my dad and sister come over,” she says, looking up at him. “Mostly for my dad who insists on eating at a table. Mostly if I have anyone my own age over they’re fine eating in here.” Beatrix brightens and jumps to her feet. “Or sometimes, on very special occasions...”

She pulls him to his feet and drags him over to the wall on the other side of her bed. It turns out there’s a small sliding glass door, that both of them have to duck under to get out of. But then they’re on this tiny little patio--it’s not a fire escape, not really, because that connects to a window in the kitchen off all places.

The patio is just the smallest bit of concrete and tile. Beatrix has a few plants sitting on the patio rail, which is a foot wide mosaic. She’s also managed to fit two wicker patio chairs, both covered with cushions and a small table and still have some room left to maneuver.

As they step out the sun’s just starting to set.

“It’s amazing--my favorite part of the whole apartment,” she says. And she smiles--soft, not laughing out loud. Tony still wants to kiss her. He resists. You can spoil a perfectly good girl by kissing her too soon. Tony thinks Beatrix is the kind of girl who wants to kiss you and not the other way around.

She flops down in one of the chairs and Tony does the same. “So I know nothing about you,” she says.

Tony thinks this is dangerous. Usually once girls find out too much about him they usually leave. “You haven’t asked me anything,” he says.

“Well, what do you do? Like for a living?” she asks.

Tony takes a long pull of his beer. “Iron work,” he says at last. Because he hasn’t been on a lot of jobs lately, so steel working is mostly true.

She nods at him. No judgement, no face making, just a solid nod. “I bet that’s hard.”

“Machine’s do most of the heavy lifting,” he says. “It’s a paycheck.”

Beatrix shrugs a little with a shy smile. “Nothing wrong with honest, hard work.”

Most people when they hear he does Iron work assume that he’s stupid. And Tony’s not. He’s not. But Beatrix doesn’t. And that’s when Tony thinks that he may want to sleep with _her_ , not just get laid. “What do you do?” he asks.

“I’m a CSI,” she says, smile lighting up her face. And shit, that’s a huge red flag and Tony should just get out now. But that smile keeps drawing him back in. Besides, it’s not like he has to ever see her again after tonight.

“You like it?” he asks, taking another pull of beer.

“Well, my coworkers are shit, but I like the actual work,” says Beatrix wrinkling her nose.

“Really?” Tony laughed a little, mostly at the face she makes.

“Really--the cops all call me lab rat and make fun of me. The other CSIs treat me like a scapegoat. If someone doesn’t want to be on call, somehow mysteriously I always end up with the calls on the weekend.” She shrugs. “I mean, the overtime is pretty great, but I am starting to really hate getting woken up at 6 am on Saturday after I’ve already been working for 6 days.”

Beatrix talks, not so much at length, but just to fill the air. She asks him questions, Tony answers, and this goes back and forth until the oven timer beeps. She brings him a plate of stuffed artichoke and another beer--Tony likes that. The idea of his girl bringing him dinner and a beer. His girl--Tony likes that idea even better.

The lapse into an easy silence as they eat. The sky’s starting to grow dark, and when they’re done Beatrix has to flick on her porch light so that they can see each other. She rests her feet on the little table next to their empty plates. Tony watches while she flexes them and absently realizes that her feet must hurt.

He moves his chair forward a little so that he can take her feet in his hands. Beatrix cocks her head a little but says nothing. Tony moves his thumbs along the pads of her feet, digging into the muscles there. Beatrix groans and tenses just a little. He rubs them out until she relaxes under his hands. Stopping after he can feel the tension flee her, he asks, “Better?”

“Much better,” she says, taking back her feet. Then she gives him a look.

Beatrix gives him a look Tony knows well. It’s a look where her eyes are half lidded, but still her pupils are blown wide, and a smile sits easy on her face. It’s no surprise when she takes a single step out of her chair to cross the patio and crawl into his lap. Tony wraps his arms around her as they begin to kiss.

She feels so good in his arms--soft and warm and all woman. Tony enjoys the way Beatrix shivers as he runs his hands underneath her tank top and up her skirt. He enjoys the way her long fingers trail across his abs and arms. He likes the way their mouths fit together, tongues trailing across one another. As his fingers trail across the soft lace of her panties Beatrix pulls back with a gasp. He rubs her there, teasing her slit for a few minutes. Beatrix leans forward wrapping her arms around Tony’s shoulders, breathing heavy in his ear and squirming in his lap. She collects herself enough to bite and suckle on Tony’s neck. Tony never tells anyone--but he always likes it when girls do that.

It’s her teeth on his neck that makes him feel like he might cum in his pants. He slides his hands to her thighs and picks her up. Beatrix just wraps her legs around his waist, and kisses him when he nudges her with his nose. He carries her into her apartment, laying her down on the bed and settling on top of her.

Beatrix tugs at his shirt, and Tony breaks off, lifting his hands so she can pull it above his head. As he straddles her, he pulls at the soft fabric of her tank, and grinning says, “Your turn, babe.”

She grins, sitting up and letting him slid it over her head. Tony holds her there so he can undo her bra strap. He fumbles a little, the clasps getting caught on the hooks. Beatrix doesn’t laugh or mock him. As she presses kisses into his chest, she reaches behind herself and seamlessly undoes the fasteners, letting him slip the bra off her shoulders and toss it onto the floor beside the bed.

Tony leans down and mouths at one of her breasts, suckling and kissing it, as he kneads the other with his hand. The way Beatrix moans sends shivers down his spine. Tony might actually pray to God to give thanks for whatever grace he's been given, because he’s done nothing to deserve this.

He trails kisses down her belly until he gets to her skirt. Tony could pull that off, but right now he’s after her panties, so he just flips the offending fabric up and grips those lacy panties until they slide down her legs. Beatrix gasps a little at the exposure, but even more so when he licks at her wet slit. Then she’s panting and whining and moaning as he eats her wet pussy. She’s a little salty and it stinks a little, but it stinks just right, like pussy should. It doesn’t smell like mangos or some nonsense like Tony had smelled before.

Beatrix digs her fingers into Tony’s hair mussing it but also pulling him further into her body. He lets his hands steadfast grip her hips to at least hold those into place, but those hands show him just how greedy, just how wanting she is right now. He lifts his face from her pussy and crawls on top of her. “You want me, babe? Want me to fuck you?”

“God, Tony, yes, please,” she says. “Want you to fuck me so bad.”

Tony unbuckles his belt and then undoes his jeans, button and zipper in one fell swoop. As he slides out of them, Beatrix wriggles out of her skirt and goes rummaging through her bedside table to pull up a condom. Once Tony shucks his boxers, he takes it from her and slides it onto his cock.

He pins her down, hands on hips as he slides inside, both of them moaning from the contact.

“God, babe, you feel so good,” says Tony, as he moves his hips so slowly, back and forth.

Beatrix pressed herself back into the mattress. “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

Tony fucks--but he’s not rough about it, like he is sometimes. Usually he likes to fuck a girl at least once before he takes her rough and hard--he wants to make sure she likes that and isn’t going to call the cops on him. For right now he fucks her even--not to fast, not too slow. Beatrix seems to like the way he pumps his hips inside of her. She has her legs wrapped around him again, and she’s reached down to stroke her clit as he fucks her.

Beatrix is starting to look blissed out. It’s a good look for her. As beautiful as she is, she looks amazing and amazed right now, blissed out from getting fucked, from being so close to cumming. Tony leans down to kiss her again. She meets him halfway, free hand trailing in the short hairs on his neck.

She moans thru the kiss and keeps moaning for a good minute--her hand all the while works faster down below. Tony assumes that she came and begins to fuck a little faster now. Ever since some chick told him in high school that most girls fake it with a guy, he always makes sure she cums--it’s why he eats out. No girl would fake it with him. Ever. He made sure.

“Did you come?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” she says, as she reaches up with her other hand to brace herself on his shoulders. “You can go faster if you want--I’m so wet right now, you won’t hurt me.”

Tony grunts a little, but speeds up. He is really quite close, and the woman beneath him just gave him permission to fuck her faster. Her cunt is clenching around his cock--riding out the aftermath of orgasm, and that just makes the fucking better. He grunts a little more, and Beatrix’s breath is hitching. When Tony slams home she gasps, nails digging into his shoulders.

They stay connected for a minute, both catching their breath. When he’s ready to pull back she says, “Hold on.”

“Wha’s a matter?” he asks.

“No, I mean hold onto your dick,” she says, as she folds an arm under her neck. “So the condom doesn’t get stuck.”

“Oh.” Tony furrows a brow at her. “That happens?”

Beatrix nods. “Yeah, it happens. And I’d rather it didn’t happen to me again. So. Hold on while you pull out, m’kay?”

Tony grins but does as she asks. As he’s knotting the rubber and throwing it in the trash, he asks, “So that really happened, huh?”

“One of the worst nights of my adult life,” says Beatrix.

When he turns back, she’s turning down her sheets and comforter. She pats the space next to her on the bed. Tony saunters over, picking up his briefs as he goes.

“Pass me my panties, please?” she says, leaning off the bed to get her tank top. She comes back with his shirt which she pulls over her head indiscriminately.

Tony tosses her her panties as he slips into bed. “So what’s the worst?” he asks, clarifying, “what’s the worst night of your life if getting a condom stuck was only one of them.”

She hums, settling against him as she pulls the sheets up around them. “Worst night as an adult was definitely the time some of my hall mates invited me to a rave, and then left me there. I had to walk five miles to campus in heels wearing this dress that pretty much didn’t cover anything except my torso.”

“I’d like to see you in that dress,” says Tony with a grin.

Beatrix punches his shoulder. “Yeah well--it was nearly April, but it was still well after midnight, so it was pitch dark and so cold. I swear I was almost blue when I got back to the dorms. I thought I was gonna die or get raped or something, and the fear kept me up for the rest of the day, even when I was safe.”

Tony runs his fingers through her hair, scratching at her scalp in a comforting gesture. “But that still wasn’t the worst night ever, just the worst night as an adult.” He has no idea why he pursues the topic. Probably because he likes listening to her talk, and he can’t think of what else to say. But he feels Beatrix stiffen against him, he regrets it. “Forget it, I’m sorry. You don’t have to say.”

Beatrix relaxes. “If we have a second date I’ll probably tell you eventually. It’s just, it’s heavy.”

“Not the sort of thing you tell a hook up?” Tony asks, looking down into her eyes.

“Not the sort of thing I talk about if I can avoid it,” says Beatrix. She reaches out and kisses his neck. “Not with anybody.”

Tony’s never felt so good to be not special. “‘Kay,” he says, kissing her. He meant to reach for her mouth, but somehow ends up kissing her forehead, like they’re kids or something. There’s plenty of stuff he doesn’t tell anyone--about prison, about his old man, about a lot. He gets it, he does. So he kisses her forehead again and then reaches down to peck at her mouth. He looks up and says, “So where’s the lights in this place?”

Beatrix giggles a little. “By the kitchen.”

There are three light switches on the wall of the kitchen threshold, and Tony spends some time flipping through them before the studio goes completely dark--save for the light out on Beatrix’s patio. He finds that one on the way back to the bed, and he and Beatrix settle in. Tony falls asleep to the sound of her even breathing.

Beatrix wakes before the sun, still in Tony’s arms. Her bladder’s full of beer, and she desperately needs to release herself, but Tony has a tight grip. She, with some wiggling, manages to worm her way out of his grip, but has to give up his shirt to do so. Which is fine, because this is her apartment and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t get to walk around mostly nude.

She pees and returns to the main room. Tony looks up at her from where he’s reclined on her bed. His eyes go a little wide as he says, “well, hello.”

“Hello there,” says Beatrix as she climbs back onto the bed. She leans over to kiss him, and Tony’s hands instant gravitate to her bare breasts, cradling them in his hands. Beatrix likes having her breasts fondled, she discovers, as she straddles Tony. She rubs her panty clad bottom, getting increasingly wet, against his brief clad cock. The sensation is amazing.

Tony must think so too. He flips her over and snatches off their underwear. Breaking their kiss, he asks, “Condom?”

She tries to reach out for the drawer of her bed side table, but doesn’t quite make it with 200 pounds of man on top of her. Tony reaches out in her stead and digs around before he holds up a condom. Grinning he rips it open and slips it onto his cock.

Beatrix pulls him down for a kiss as he slips inside of her. “Fuck,” she gasps out. She must be sensitive because of last night because this feels so much more intense. “Fuck me, Tony.”

“Want me to plow you, babe?” Tony grins at her, picking up the pace a little.

“Fucking plow me, Tony!” Beatrix wraps her arm around him, digging her nails into his back.

Tony, meanwhile, pulls her legs up to get better leverage and pumps his hips faster and faster. “God you’re amazing. Fuck, Trix, God, you’re so fucking amazing.”

“Tony...” Beatrix moans as he fucks into her. “Oh God, Tony, this feels so fucking good. You feel so fucking good.”

Endearments fade to moans and panting--Tony is lasting a lot longer than he did last night. But then again, they didn’t really need much foreplay and he’s cum within the past 24 hours.

Beatrix feels something bubbling up inside of her. It’s not quite an orgasm, but it’s similar enough. She’s only ever squirted once before so it comes as something of a surprise when she does so all over Tony and her bed.

“Fuck, babe,” says Tony over a little laugh. “Yeah, I guess you do like it. Gonna do it again?”

“I dunno, that’s never happened with someone else before,” she says. “But, oh fuck--Tony!”

Tony leans down to suckle on her neck, and Beatrix presses back against him, wiggling in his grasp. Tony moves his hands, calloused fingers and palms ghosting on her skin, from her thighs to her hips where he holds her down, pressing her into the mattress. Beatrix feels a little faint, but not in a bad way, she feels almost a little like she’s on the edge of an orgasm, but she can’t go over the edge and she’s holding on for dear life to Tony so she can’t even reach down to touch her clit. Beatrix isn’t sure she would want to.

Tony slams home into her and gives a small grunt. He holds himself inside of her as he cums. Beatrix wonders for a moment what it would feel like to feel his cum emptying in her. Tony lets his cock sit inside her for a moment as he leans into her kissing her. They’re kitten-lick type kisses, more pecks than make out kisses. Beatrix presses back, sometimes on his mouth, sometimes on the cheek or jaw. Tony doesn’t seem to mind.

They move onto their sides, and one of Tony’s hands slide from her hip to clit, rubbing it gently.

“Don’t think I’m going to cum,” Beatrix mumbles against his mouth. “I’m too keyed up.”

“S’okay,” says Tony. “We’ve got time. N’ I wanna make sure you do.”

Tony slides his other hand up to her breasts and kneads the flesh in his hand. He suckles at her neck and rubs her clit--and god it's so good, but it’s so much. Beatrix can feel herself building up, but she plateaus out right before she would normally cum. Her clit is so sensitive, and Tony rubs it just right. Beatrix out right whines when she feels the orgasm start to build up but she just can’t cum.

“Easy, babe, easy,” says Tony right on her ear. He takes one of her breasts in his mouth and suckles at her nipple.

“Tony, Tony, please,” she says through moans and pants and whines.

“I’ll get you there, babe, I’ll get you there.”

When she finally gets pushed over the edge to climax, Beatrix whimpers and then can’t stop making noise. Mostly it constitutes muttering “Oh fuck,” over and over again, until her voice gets caught in her throat. Tony keeps rubbing her clit until the wave of orgasm dies down and she turns into a puddle of Beatrix on the bed. It’s then that Tony pulls out, eliciting one last whimper from her.

When he stands to dispose of the condom, instead of crawling back into bed, Tony wanders in her kitchen. He rummages around in the cupboards and the refrigerator until he comes up with a frying pan, butter, eggs and the left over artichokes. Beatrix wonders what he’s doing, but boneless as she is, she can’t do more than raise her head right now.

He comes back with a plate--there’s a stuffed artichoke steaming from the microwave and a sunny side up egg place on top of each half. He hands her a fork, and Beatrix manages to sit up and take it from him. “Thank you,” she says, pressing a short kiss to his mouth. “And here I thought you couldn’t cook.”

“I can reheat supper and fry an egg, sure,” he says around a bite of food.

“Don’t forget you helped me make supper,” she says.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Oh, whatever.”

Beatrix just grins at him as she munches on the yoke covered chorizo and artichoke.

Her phone rings from the bedside table and Beatrix leaves the plate in Tony’s hand as she reaches out to grab it. Cpt. Singh’s picture shows up on her lock screen, so she makes sure to swallow before she answers and says, “Good morning, Captain.”

“Morning,” he says. “Are you on call today?”

“I wasn’t yesterday when I checked the weekend schedule.” Beatrix rolls her eyes and wonders where would be a good place to hide poop near Wesson’s lab station.

“Hmm...that’s what I thought. In fact, I’m looking at the weekend on call schedule I got yesterday and you’re nowhere on it,” says Singh. “But when I called Wesson and checked the schedule that was posted today, there you were. You wanna come in and process a scene? It’s a hit and run, so it should be quick, and you’ll get paid for the whole day.”

“Where’s the crime scene?” she asks.

“5th and Morrison,” says Singh.

“That’s right by my apartment, so I should be able to get there in 20,” she says. As she says this, Tony leans over and starts licking her collarbone. She playfully pushes him away, only for him to come right back to it.

“Are you sure you’ll only need 20 minutes?” Singh asks.

“I’m budgeting in time to get dressed and kick my boyfriend out--it’s a five minute walk from where I live,” Beatrix explains.

“Oh, so now I’m your boyfriend?” Tony asks.

She can hear Singh rolling his eyes. “Allen, I really don’t want to know.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll be there in 20 minutes,” says Beatrix.

“See you there, Allen,” says Singh.

Beatrix has no doubt that Singh will actually be at the crime scene--probably in fifteen minutes so he can time her. She takes a large bite of egg, chorizo and artichoke and rises from the bed, heading into the bathroom. She pees and wipes herself down with a wet washcloth.

“You’re really going to work?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” says Beatrix.

“Weren’t you just complaining about this last night?” Tony appears in the bathroom doorway, scooting past her to use the toilette.

“Well yea, but I’m still getting paid, like, $170 for going to work for 2 hours,” says Beatrix.

Tony stops midstream and stares at her. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she says. “Time and a half for the whole day. It adds up.”

Tony shakes his head and keeps peeing. “I’m in the wrong damn business,” he says. “You mind if I shower real quick? Since we got fifteen minutes? I’ll drive you.”

Beatrix kisses him, unable to keep the smile from her face. “Sure.”

Beatrix pads around her apartment cleaning up. She makes the bed, rather haphazardly, then puts all of her clothes in the laundry basket while laying Tony’s out on the bed. She has one of Joe’s old shirts in the closet, so she lays that out, in case he doesn’t want to wear the shirt she wore to bed and they might have had sex on. She dresses quickly, and is just pulling on a dress shirt when Tony comes out of the bathroom, running a towel over his body. God, he looks even better wet. She bites her lip and focuses on buttoning her shirt.

Tony only laughs at her. “Well, if someone didn’t insist on going to work, we could have had sex again.” He picks up the green Henley lying on the bed. “This for me?”

“Yes,” she says, debating on wearing a blazer. It’s been in the seventies the past week, and so she’ll be baking if she does. Her shirt is opaque, though, so that should be fine. She tucks it into her trousers and pulls on a pair of leather tennis shoes that look just professional enough, but means they won’t be murder on feet.

When she turns around to face Tony, he’s dressed and fiddling with her phone. “‘M texting myself,” he says, waving the phone at her.

“Oh,” she says. She was honestly glad he took the initiative, even if he did it without asking. She was always horrible about asking for second dates. Beatrix goes about making sure she has her kit and her keys, the noise of which summons Tony to his feet.

They walk to the elevator banks, which are mercifully empty, and ride down to Tony’s truck in a companionable silence. Beatrix even reaches out to take Tony’s hand. He blinks when she does, but doesn’t pull away.

He starts up his beater and gets her to the crime scene a full minute before she had promised Captain Sing she would be there.

“Thank you for doing this,” she says.

“Thank you for dinner,” he says.

Beatrix moves to get the door handle, when Tony calls her back with a soft, “Hey.”

“Hey what?” says Beatrix, or tries to say, but Tony is kissing her. And wow--if she has forgotten how well he kisses, she is reminded in this moment.

He pulls away after a moment, licking his lips. “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yes,” she says. She presses a peck to his mouth and says, “But for now I gotta go.”

“Go solve crime,” he says. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

Beatrix flushes at the cat calls she receives when she steps out of Tony’s truck and walks over to the crime scene.

“If he’s not your boyfriend, he should be,” says Singh, a grin on his face. “You’re here on time.”

Beatrix can’t contain her eye roll--and it’s a good thing she’s known David Singh since she was a kid, because the Captain wouldn’t take shit like that from everyone.

Singh mostly stands back and watches her work. There's a detective on the scene already and Beatrix gives them a run down on the scene--but there’s still some evidence to process and she’s gonna have to do a full write up. The detective says that there’s enough to get started with what will probably be a very short investigation and waves her off. The Captain offers her a ride back to the station, and Beatrix feels a little like she just got called into the principal’s office.

She desperately wants to ask if she’s done something wrong and wonders if this will be another lecture on punctuality. Instead, the captain asks, “How long has this been going on?”

Beatrix’s brows furrow, and so Singh clarifies, “How long have you been doing on call for the other CSIs when they were supposed to be on duty.”

Beatrix has to think. It wasn’t right away when she started, but it’s been a while. “I’d have to check my pay stubs, but it’s been a few months, I think.”

“So you have been getting paid for the time then?” asks Singh. “That’s one thing at least. You have any idea why this is happening?”

Beatrix shrugs. “Maybe because of Joe or my mom? I’ve known a lot of people in this precinct since I was a kid. Maybe some people think there’s some nepotism at play. But I know none of the other starting CSIs here or at the precincts near by have had this happen to them more than once or twice in the months they’ve been working. More of a learn to pull your weight sort of thing.”

“Making you work every weekend for months is another thing, however,” says Singh. “At least you’ve been getting paid for it so that’s something, but...” He shakes his head. “I’ll look into it with Fletcher--she’s the one that draws up the schedule, she needs to know that people are changing it.”

Beatrix holds her tongue to prevent herself from saying that Fletcher doesn’t like her either and probably doesn’t care that the other CSIs are doing stuff like this.

True to Beatrix’s estimate, she only spends about two hours total processing the scene. She runs into Joe on her way out. “Hiya,” she says.

“Hey, Bear,” he says. “I thought you weren't on call today.”

“Wesson couldn't make it in, so I came in instead,” she says. “I just finished up and Singh says it looks like I’m in the clear, so I was going to vamoose before they could find more for me to do.”

“Not a bad plan,” he says. “Hey, Iris is gonna pull her head out of her internship for the evening, wanna join us for dinner?”

“Sure!” Beatrix winces at how chipper she sounds.

Joe notices too, because he takes a step back and squints at her. “Now, wait just one minute, Beatrix Nora. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

“Can’t a girl have a good day?” she asks, really wishing that they weren’t in the middle of the precinct foyer.

“Well, you could, but now that I think about it, Meyers was telling me about how a strange guy dropped you off at your crime scene.” Joe wiggled his eyebrows at her, which was always a disturbing sight. “So, I gotta ask, as your dad, when do I get to meet this young man?”

“We _just_ had a first date, Joe,” she says, wilting under his affectionate gaze. “At least let us get a little traction before you try to grind the whole thing to a halt.”

“Hey now.” Joe pinches her side. “I’m just looking out for my babies, that’s all.”

“I know...” Beatrix gives him her best puppy dog eyes, which are not as good as Iris’ but still pretty effective. “But, please, give me a little time to figure out if I even want to introduce him to you and Iris.”

“Alright, baby,” he says. He gives her a hug and then directs her to the door. “Now get out of here, okay?”

“See you tonight, Joe,” she says.

Beatrix checks her phone for the first time since she got to work. Tony texted her about an hour ago to ask how things were going and if she wanted to get lunch. She texts back to say that she’s done now, and if he still wants to meet up for lunch they can.

Tony texts back saying that he could eat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is a culmination of a couple of ideas I've had rolling around in my head. One, of course, is that Barry and Tony meet up before the events of the Flash, don't recognize each other, and start dating. Another is a 63 universe (though, not everyone is swapped, other characters will be). There are other ideas, certain re-workings, other pairings that will come into play, but I don't want to spoil you. So I won't. 
> 
> Shout out to Daughter_of_Scotland, who was an amazing muse and beta for this project.


	2. Coast City (or, the Past Will Haunt You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beatrix discovers out who Tony was and who is his now.

It feels like Beatrix blinks and they’ve been dating for two months. They don’t see each other all the time, but that’s probably for the best, as there is too much of a good thing. Mostly they see each other once during the week and do something on Saturday if Beatrix isn’t on call (which happens a lot less frequently now that Captain Singh has intervened). Tony asks if she wants to go up to Coast City, since the summer’s ending. They can spend a few days at the beach, a few nights breaking the springs in a hotel bed. Beatrix makes sure she can schedule the time off, but agrees. 

She tells Joe, and he tells her that they had better come to dinner after they get back from the beach. 

They are dating for two months, when Beatrix realizes that she knows very little about Tony. She realizes this when they check into their hotel, and Tony tells the receptionist that their reservation is under Woodward. 

Beatrix thinks it’s good that Tony’s facing away from her because she freezes a little at his name. Finally she puts two and two together and gets four. She smiles back at him when he gets their keys and leads them to their room. 

“Do you wanna go to the beach first?” He takes her in his arms as he talks, something he likes doing--something Beatrix normally likes when he does. 

Before he can suggest sex, which she knows he’s going to, she says, “Yeah, let’s go.” 

Because she can’t have sex with Tony right now. But they’ve been dating for two months, so it will be best if she can keep her freak out internal right now. Before Tony protests she starts pulling on her suit under the skirt and tank top she’s wearing. Tony appears to let it roll off his back and shucks his jeans to pull on a pair of swim trunks in place of his boxers. 

They head down to the beach, hand in hand. Beatrix is still stuck in her own head, as they lay out their towels next to each other. Tony offers to go get them sweet teas, which he knows she likes, and Beatrix lays out in the sun thinking about what she’s just learned. 

For two months she’s been dating Tony Woodward--her childhood bully. Two months of the best sex she’s ever had. Two months with one of the most considerate men she’s ever met. Two months of feeling like she’s falling in love. And he turns out to be the one that ruined her life when she was younger. For no damn good reason either. Beatrix supposes she should have seen this coming. She had recognized him at least a little when they first met. Plus, she had never had it this good, so it made sense that it all blew up in her face.

Ugh. 

When Tony returns with the iced teas, she’s rubbing her temples 

“You alright?” he asks. 

“My head hurts,” she says. Because, well, it does. 

Tony sticks their iced teas in the sand and flops down next to her. Kissing her temple he murmurs, “Well if we had stayed in the hotel room, I might have been able to help with that.” 

He kisses her neck next, and Beatrix feels aroused. Both at the touch of his kisses and the remembrance of the time he actually fucked a migraine out of her. He’s so gentle now as he runs his nose up and down her neck, Beatrix pauses to wonder how many Tony Woodwards there are in the world. 

“Hey, Woodward!” Tony looks up and there’s a hunky blonde running toward them. “I thought that was you! Did you move back?”

“Just here for the weekend,” says Tony, looking up at the blonde. “Marc, this is my girl, Beatrix, Trix, this is Marc, old friend from when I lived up here for a bit.” 

Marc tucks a volleyball under one arm to shake her hand. “Got a couple people together to play a game. You guys want in? Some of the people I came with are sitting out, so we’ve got an odd number.”

“Yeah, sure,” says Tony. He turns to her, hand sliding on her knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. “You wanna come?”

“I’m gonna pop some Tylenol and wait my headache out,” says Beatrix. She manages to press a kiss to his lips. “Go have some fun, I’m gonna be a wet blanket for a couple of hours.” 

“You sure?” Tony asks. 

“I’m sure.” She kisses him again, and then pushes him to his feet. “Besides, if I join you’ll still have an uneven number.” 

“Alright.” Tony kisses her one last time before he gets to his feet. “I’ll come and check on you in a little bit.” 

“Kay,” she says. 

True to her word, Beatrix takes two Tylenol as she watches them jog off to about 50 feet away where Marc and his cohort have a volleyball net set up. She chugs some sweet tea hoping it’s delicious goodness will have some answers. Beatrix still comes up dry. 

“Hiya.” 

Beatrix looks up and sees a woman standing over her gesturing back to where Tony is playing volleyball with old friends. “I’m Naomi, one of Marc friends. I was wondering if I could chill with you, since I’m sitting out.” 

“Sure,” she says, even though she doesn’t feel like company right now. Beatrix knows what it’s like to be the odd one out. She can have her personal crisis later. 

This turns out to be a good plan--Naomi is really cool, from her candy-apple-red hair, to her fifties bathing suit, to being totally willing to bare her fat rolls to the world. Beatrix can barely show off a bikini because she always thought herself too stick skinny. Naomi’s totally open and amazing however. She’s also a geek, so it gives her and Beatrix _a lot_ to talk about.

About an hour after he went off to play with old friends, Tony does come over to check on her, and to try and goad her into wakeboarding with the others. “And please don’t talk about undercurrents and riptides,” he says. 

“But undercurrents and riptides are scarrrry,” she says with a whine. “I’m not much of an ocean swimmer. Not much of a strong swimmer at all really.” 

Tony wrinkles his nose at her. “Fine. How’s your head?” 

“Getting better,” says Beatrix. 

He kisses her short and sweet. “You know, you are going to have to spend some time with me on this vacation of ours.”

“Well, when you finish wakeboarding, I might let you buy me dinner,” says Beatrix with a grin. 

Tony rolls his eyes and turns to Naomi. “She’s just so generous, isn’t she?”

Naomi nods. “A true saint of the times.”

“And what about you, darlin’, you coming along?” Tony asks. 

“Meh.” Naomi waves him off. “I’m wearing a two piece with no straps. I’d rather not show my boobs to the world if it’s all the same. I’ll look after Beatrix for a while.” 

Tony shrugs one last time, kissing Beatrix before heading off.

“I might actually kill someone to have a significant other like him,” says Naomi. “He’s a sweetie.” 

“Yeah.” Beatrix sighs.

“Uh-oh, my agony-aunt sense is tingling.” Naomi grins at her. “Spill. I want to hear everything, what’s the hot goss, what’s the 411?”

Beatrix licks her lips. “Are you sure you don’t mind getting dumped on by a complete stranger?”

“We’ve discussed Doctor Who headcanons--you are no longer a stranger, my friend.” Naomi nudges Beatrix in the ribs with her elbow. “Tell me.”

And so it all comes out--about the two months--the amazing sex--the weekend trip. And how she realized just over an hour ago that Tony had picked on her for much of late elementary and part of early middle school. 

“Wow...” says Naomi by the end. She squints. “Wait, if you didn’t know who he was, does he know who you are? Like I imagine that the two of you must have looked totally different as kids, or the sex really was mind blowing.” 

Beatrix thinks on this. She wonders if Tony really did recognize her, or perhaps he didn’t. If he did, he certainly wasn’t bothered by it. (Tony was never one much for the long con--even as an adult, Beatrix didn’t think him capable of it.) Furthermore, she wonders why she is so bothered by the idea of Tony. It is what happened when they were kids, but that was over a decade ago. Perhaps it is more that she worries that he may regress to what he once was, to the boy who hurt her without thought. But the thing is, Tony hasn’t hurt her--not even a little. He’s always considerate when they have sex. If the man handles or gropes her, it’s always with her expressed consent and interest. He’s been a good boyfriend these past two months--better than many men that Beatrix has been with. Better than many men she’s known. 

She supposes the big question is will he change when he learns who she is?

“I guess we really did look different as kids,” says Beatrix at last. 

“In all seriousness,” says Naomi, nodding at her. “You need to figure out if you can be with him--if you can forgive him--having experienced some of his bad past first hand. If you can, blessings to you both. If you can’t, then you need to leave. You don’t need to make yourself miserable--or Tony miserable--because you can’t.”

Beatrix turns this thought over in her mind. Naomi is right. 

“Damn straight I am,” says Naomi. 

They turn to lighter things--favorite shows, latest obsessions. By the time Tony returns, Beatrix is slightly more relaxed than she was when he left. Naomi says goodbye and heads back over to her group friends, who are packing up. 

Tony falls down next to her, and begins to dry himself off. “That was awesome. I forgot how much I like going to the beach and doing stuff like that.”

“Bet you’re hungry,” says Beatrix. 

She leans over to kiss his cheek and when she pulls back, Tony catches her lips. He kisses low and slow, lips and tongue taking their time with her. Beatrix lets the kiss go on--she likes it, despite all of her internal drama. The calloused pad of his thumb rubs along her collarbone, giving Beatrix an itch she can’t scratch. 

Tony pulls away after several minutes and says, “‘M more than one kind of hungry.”

Beatrix kisses her jaw. “What kind do you want to satisfy first?”

He hums, mouthing at her neck. “Should probably get something to eat. Don’t want to have to stop and start with you right now.” Tony pulls away and stands up, dusting off sand and pulling on his shoes. He offers her his hand. Beatrix takes it and gets to her feet. They pack up the towels and walk off the beach. Tony takes her to this little sub shop he knows, and orders first. 

Beatrix orders next and when the sandwich artist asks what name they want it under, she pays and says, “Allen.”

“Who’s Allen?” Tony asks, as they take a seat down at outdoor picnic tables. 

“I am,” she says. 

Tony’s brows furrow and then he lights up. “Oh, your last name!” He grins and laughs. “Wow, I feel a little stupid.” 

“Don’t,” she says. With a smile, she admits, “You know, I didn’t know your last name ‘till you gave it to the receptionist at the hotel.” 

“Geezus,” says Tony, with another laugh. “And we’ve been dating for like, what, two months?” 

“Yeah,” says Beatrix, as she waits on bated breath. 

Tony just grins at her and then hops up when the people at the stall call out Allen. They eat in the companionable silence that they always do, before they walk back hand in hand to the hotel. Tony kisses her before he says that he’s gonna take a shower to wash off all the sand. “Plus I know how you like it when I’m wet,” he whispers against her mouth.

And then Beatrix is left alone with her thoughts again. She strips out of her tank and skirt, leaving herself in her bikini. She has a plan going when Tony comes out of the bathroom, still a little wet, and completely without a towel. He kisses her, crowding into her space and pulling at the strings on her suit. 

When they pull away for air, Beatrix says, “I want you to do something for me,” all in a rush.

Tony blinks a little and goes back to undressing her. “Okay.”

“I want you to spank me.” 

Tony pulls back and looks Beatrix full on in the eye. “You want me to what?”

“To spank me,” she says, fidgeting a little. “I just...I feel bad, for not hanging out with you today. And I want you to spank me, to...to make up for it.” Beatrix feels her face burn bright red as she asks for it, but she does want this. She wants it, because she feels like it’s going to help her move on from this.

Tony’s a little flushed as well, but more than a little aroused. Beatrix can see his cock twitch despite the fact that it’s not touching anything. His pupils are blown wide and he’s licking his lips. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says at last.

“You won't,” says Beatrix with every ounce of confidence. “We’ll agree on the number, and then you’ll stop.”

Beatrix was once told that faith is not blind. It is trust that results from proven action. In their relationship so far, the Tony she has known has never once harmed her. She is trusting that his actions from today will continue through the next few minutes. 

“Okay,” Tony agrees after a moment of mulling it over. “How...how do we do this?” 

She props up some pillows against the headboard and has him sit back against them. Tony pulls at the strings of her bikini bottom until it comes loose and falls off. Beatrix lays over his lap and they agree on fifteen swats to each butt cheek. Tony asks her to count so he can keep track. 

In this regard, Tony doesn’t know how to be gentle. The very first swat stings in a way that Beatrix has never known. Neither her parents nor Joe had ever believed in corporal punishment. The closest experience she’s had is when she’s fallen on her ass in the past, but it doesn’t quite compare. This sort of pain stings and it builds. 

The first spank, despite Tony’s force, doesn’t actually hurt that much. But by the time they get to about seven or so, it’s starting to hurt more and more. She makes it to eleven before the tears and the sniffles starts. Tony makes it to twelve before he decides they’re done. 

He pulls Beatrix up in his lap and she straddles him. Tony grabs tissues from the nightstand and wipes away her tears and helps her blow her nose. He’s rock hard and she’s so wet right now. 

“Why’d you stop?” she asks when her tears die down.

“You were crying,” he says. “I can’t make you cry.” 

Beatrix almost says that he doesn’t need to worry about it--she could have taken it. Of course she was crying, though, it hurt. But she realizes, before she speaks, that Tony ought to be comfortable too. If he doesn’t want to make her cry, then he has every right to pull the plug when she can’t control it anymore. 

So she says, “Okay,” and then kisses him, soft and slow. They make out a little, rubbing against each other like teenagers. Beatrix pulls away to ask, “Do you still wanna...?”

“Yeah,” says Tony with a little sigh. “Only, will you ride me?” 

“Yeah,” says Beatrix--and it’s really for the best, because she actually kind of doesn’t want to figure out how her sore ass rubbing against the sheets would feel. 

They’re both way keyed up, and when she slides onto him, Beatrix quivers and feels like she might actually come just from that. She has to take a second before she can move, and meanwhile Tony kisses her, hot and heavy, tongue licking into her mouth and suckling her lips. 

When Beatrix can finally move, they both groan at the sensation. They have to pull away from one another so they can breath--as it is they’re both panting as she rides him. She gets a little more frantic as the sensation builds, snapping her hips up and down to get more more more. Tony grabs her by the hips, thumbs digging into her torso and fingers into her sore ass. 

“Easy, babe,” he says as she slows down. “We got time. We got all the time in the world.” 

Beatrix measures her strokes, and Tony responds in kind, thrusting up inside of her. It’s a weird rhythm, but they make it work. Beatrix feels so close to orgasm she could scream. She reaches down to touch herself, but Tony pins her arms behind her back with a small “tsk.”

“You were naughty, remember?” he asks with a grin. “Naughty girls don’t get to cum before their boyfriends, do they?” 

“No,” says Beatrix, though it comes out through a whine. 

He slaps her ass. “That’s right, sweetheart.” Tony grins as he says this, and so Beatrix knows that he’s kidding around--playing the game she initiated. 

She doesn’t mind. She kind of likes the frustration simmering inside her from not being able to cum. Still, Beatrix cannot hold back her whimpers as she rides Tony, wet and dying to cum. Tony seems like he’s trying really hard not to cum, to prolong her “suffering.” Beatrix figures this is an excellent time to do some kegels and squeezes his cock.

“Aw fuck,” he mutters and he gives a familiar grunt of release. 

Beatrix milks him for all he’s worth, before Tony tilts her back onto the bed. “You wanna play a game?” he asks.

“What kind of game?” Beatrix says in return.

“The kind where I’m going to eat you out, but only as long as you can stay quiet.” Tony wriggles his eyebrows at her, before tilting her back so she’s lying out on the bed. 

His hot, hot mouth huffs on her pussy and Beatrix shudders, but tries to do so quietly. Tony licks a long stripe up her slit, ending with a tickle to her clit. Beatrix bucks a little bit, but bites back a sound. He keeps thrusting his tongue inside of her and lapping at the juice leaking on to her thighs. It’s driving Beatrix crazy--she loves what Tony’s doing but she wants to come damnit!

After several minutes of teasing, Tony finally scoots his mouth up to her clit. He gives a few kitten-licks with the tip of his tongue, testing her waters. Beatrix wiggles, but doesn’t make a sound. When he latches onto her clit to suck, he plunges two fingers inside, finger fucking her as he goes.

Beatrix almost doesn’t make it. She almost bites her lip open trying not to cry out. At last she takes a piece of the comforter into her mouth (probably not the most sanitary thing to do as a it is a hotel, but Beatrix really, really does not care). She comes in two minutes, but Tony just keeps on. Beatrix is sure that he can hear her grunts and moans, even through the large amount of downy comforter in her mouth, but he keeps licking and sucking. 

It takes her another three minutes for her to cum again--Beatrix keeps track of the seconds in her head. When she comes a third time, less than a minute later, she releases the comforter from her mouth and very nearly screams. Tony, never one to quit while he was a head keeps sucking and finger fucking until she finishes out her orgasm. Then he pulls off of her with a wet pop, juice running down his chin. 

He leans up to kiss her, pussy juice and all. Beatrix feels so limp that even kissing is a dazed challenge--but she likes it. She’s never felt this satisfied before. Never. 

Tony strokes aside her hair from her sweaty forehead and asks, “Wanna take a bath?” 

“Mm, that sounds nice,” she murmurs. 

Tony kisses her forehead and scoots off the bed. She hears him padding through the room and then she hears the water cut on and begin to fill up the tub. Tony returns, though he looks more upside down than he normally does as he looms over her. “Can you walk?” he asks.

“Well, right now I’m flying, so I assume so,” she says, but doesn’t move. 

Tony only shakes his hand and slides his hands under her. The next think Beatrix knows--he’s picked her up and is carrying her into the bathroom. 

The hotel tub is pretty big--bigger than the one she’s got at her apartment and bigger than she’s seen in other hotels. Tony sets her down, so he can slide into the tub first. Beatrix, legs still wobbly, steps in after him, letting Tony help her to her knees. It takes a minute for them to arrange themselves, but eventually they find a comfortable arrangement where Tony lays back against the porcelain and Beatrix lays against him, though on her side, to avoid her still tender butt sticking to anything. 

Tony’s running his fingers through her hair, occasionally scratching at her scalp. The water is fairly tepid, but comfortable given that they have a few warm days to hang onto. Beatrix finds herself becoming more and more awake, instead of falling asleep like she normally would in a bath. She draws spiral patterns of water on Tony’s pecks, studying the way the droplets roll off his skin. 

She stares up at him, and it doesn’t take long before he stares back at her. 

“You are so beautiful,” he says, voice mellow and matter-of-fact. 

Beatrix leans up to kiss him. As she pulls back from his lips she says, “I love you.” Before he can say anything she powers on. “I know it’s super weird to say it right now, considering that we just had sex, and I just asked you to spank me. But I kind of realized today that I do--that I love you, I mean.” 

Tony leans down and puts an end to her ramblings with a sound kiss. “I love you, too,” he says.

So, no, she thinks, it doesn’t matter who Tony was in elementary school. Doesn’t matter that he was a bully and that the two of them couldn’t stand each other. Right now he’s a man who can’t bear to hit her. Right now he’s a man who can’t bear to see her cry. Right now he’s a man who loves her. Right now, it’s more than enough for him to be those things and for him not to be the boy he once was. He loves her. 

All those things make it enough--more than enough--for Beatrix to let go of her worry.

She does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was interesting to write as far as fall out goes. I went Austen-esque with it, in that Beatrix spends a lot of time reflecting and then acts just towards the end on the reflection. Of course, this is more explicit than Austen, but meh.


	3. Childhood Memories (or, Loss)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other shoe drops, and Tony doesn't know if he can handle this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is discussion of abuse in this chapter, so caution warning for that.

The see each other more when they come back from Coast City. Tony starts to sleep over more at Beatrix’s place. It’s nice. They wake up together more, and when Beatrix makes herself lunch, she also makes one for Tony, so he has something to take with him to the steel plant. The guys he works with tease him about being married. But Tony thinks it’s...well, it’s nice. It’s nice to have someone to call his own, to wake up with, who cares enough to make him lunch, even if it is a sloppy sandwich. 

It’s weird, because Tony’s never had this before. He’s never told a woman “I love you,” like he’s done with Beatrix. Ever since Coast City they say it all the time to one another. When they leave for work, when they say goodbye on the phone, a lot, a lot during sex. But he likes being in love with her. He likes _her._ That’s the weirdest part of all. Because Tony’s never really liked a girl that he’s dated before. And Beatrix is a geek--she likes watching fantasy shows and reads a ton. She tried to get him to watch with her or read something, and eventually they compromised on Game of Thrones, which she starts showing him online whenever they have a spare minute to hang out with each other (and when they’re not having sex). 

It’s strange, but he likes it. 

He likes the little thoughts that creep up on him every now and then about how he thinks about spending the rest of his life with Beatrix. He thinks, sometimes, about what sort of engagement ring she’d like, about when would be a good time for them to get married. Did she want to get married? She was a sort of modern woman. He sees little kids differently now too, because he’ll just be driving along or walking down the street, or spy the foreman’s kids, and think about what his and Beatrix’s children will look like, what she’ll look like pregnant. 

She’s going to look amazing. She always looks amazing. 

The weirdest thing of all is how he isn’t the least bit scared of any of these things. He’s 24--25 in a few weeks--and if you had asked him a year ago if he would ever think of getting married or having kids, he probably would have punched you in the face. But now he has Beatrix. And he wants all these strange things he’s never wanted before. But he likes it. He likes the way she is changing him and he wants to be changed. 

So when he and Beatrix wake up early one Saturday morning, he agrees to go to a farmers market with her to restock her empty fridge and pantry. When they spot an outdoor concert of string music, Tony lets Beatrix pull him along to listen (and he makes it a whole 30 minutes before he falls asleep--it’s worth it, though, because she shakes him awake with a small smile and a soft kiss). When she brings up that her dad has been bugging her about bringing him over for dinner, Tony agrees it’s about time he met her family. 

The easy way she grins and hugs him when he says yes makes him wish he had been this way his whole life, makes him glad if he couldn’t be that he could become the man he needed to be to make Beatrix Allen happy. 

The whole dinner with her family thing doesn’t exactly pan out, though. 

It’s not that all of them aren’t trying. Tony shows up at Beatrix’s dad’s house to find just her waiting there. “Joe got a break in a case,” she explains. “It was something they had to move on right away. Iris is so stressed about an early midterm that I told her not to worry about it since Dad’s not going to be here.”

Tony finds himself a little disappointed and that his stomach begins to knot itself up even worse than it was before--and he didn’t know his stomach could make knots or that it had to begin with. He realizes he wanted to get the whole “meet the parents” thing over with because Joe and Iris are important to Beatrix. And if Tony wants to be important to Beatrix--and he does--he has to make Iris and Joe important too. 

They eat the roast Beatrix baked, make out on her childhood couch and at last head home.

They reschedule--and this time it’s Tony’s fault that it falls apart.

To be fair, he ran into Marc in the streets of Central. He spots his old work buddy, and they get to talking. Marc asks if he wants to grab a bite. While they eat, Marc explains that he’s starting up a company with an old friend. Some how that explanation ends with, “Anyway, you should apply. Can’t promise I’ll hire you, but I know you work hard.”

“What are you doing?” Tony asks.

“We’re opening a brewery,” says Marc. “Adam thinks we’ll be able to expand into a pub. It’ll be regular hours. We’ll have health care, decent pay. Chance for you to move up since you’re getting in early. Adam’s a numbers guy, and I know how to manage people. He’s already got this small business in place, but he needs someone like me to expand.”

But the only time he can come in to interview with Adam, Marc and the chick, Naomi, that they’re starting up with, is after his shift at the iron works. And, of course, his interview ends up being on the day they planned to go out together. Which means he can’t go to dinner with Beatrix’s family. 

Beatrix pouts, but at last let’s out a puff of hot air. “I understand, I really do. I’ll just tell'em you’re looking out for me by getting a better job.” 

“Dunno that it’ll be that much better,” says Tony. 

He doesn’t regret missing dinner for long (despite the fact that his stomach has now decided to curdle from worry), because he gets the job after what seems like shooting the shit with Marc, Adam and Naomi for an hour. Not only does he get to work for people that actually have souls, they’re gonna pay him twelve-and-a-half bucks an hour, forty hours a week guaranteed. Overtime if they need it. For work that’s not nearly as hard (even if it does require much more skill) as what he was doing at the iron works. He doesn’t make as much as Beatrix--hell, he probably never will. But he’s got a job--an actual fucking job. 

Beatrix makes him dinner and fucks his brains out when they find out. So, you know, she’s not that disappointed either. 

Time number three, everyone has cleared their schedules--good thing, too, because there’s a winter weather warning that leaves everyone snowed in. They’re lucky the power doesn’t go out, and even so they move the bed into the living room to get it away from the porch and spend the whole evening cuddling under multiple blankets. 

After that, Joe and Beatrix are too busy cleaning up the city. Christmas is nearly a go, but Tony feels weird being around for a family holiday when he hasn’t even met the family yet. Plus, his mother’s family invites him up, and he hasn’t seen them in years. By the time they consider dinner in the new year, Iris is bogged down with school and work. 

By February they all give it a break for a bit, trying to get together. 

One night in March, Tony gets Iris’ number from Beatrix’s phone and texts her an idea. She responds back with a thumbs up and a couple of positive statements ending with exclamation points. Tony gets off a little early and heads to the police station. When he signs in, he asks for directions to where Beatrix Allen works.

He knows the various officers are watching him as he walks up the stairs to her lab. Tony stops in the doorway of the lab, where Beatrix is talking with three men--all of them are wearing guns and suits, so Tony assumes they’re detectives. Tony feels his stomach start to knot, but he tells himself to calm down. He’s been arrested for some small stuff, but he’s never been caught on a job, and it’s been well over two years since his last arrest. 

Beatrix looks up at him and smiles, which catches the attention of all three men who turn around. Tony takes that as permission to enter.

“Hiya,” says Beatrix, and she greets him with a kiss. 

“Hi, hon,” he says. He turns to the three men and holds out his hand. “Hi, I’m Tony.” 

“Joe West,” says the man in the middle, who Tony recognizes as Beatrix’s foster father from the pictures around her apartment. 

“Nice to meet you,” says Tony, trying to keep his smile easy and his shoulders relaxed as they make the rest of the introductions.

“It’s about time though,” says Joe, once Tony finishes shaking hands with David Singh and Chyre. 

“Fifth time’s the charm, I guess,” says Tony. “Iris said that you both would have a dinner break around now, so she’s bringing some take out.” 

Beatrix rolls her eyes, smiling like the sun. “Of course you tag teamed with Iris.”

“Only way anything gets done,” says Iris, who Tony also recognizes from Beatrix’s pictures around the apartment. She holds a large brown bag of food, and two smaller bags. “Don’t worry, Captain, Chyre, I got some for you too.” 

“Woman after my own heart,” says Chyre, taking the proffered bag from Iris. 

Singh takes the meal from Iris as well. Beatrix has already moved around her lab and is stacking up papers on a table to make room for the four of them to eat. She and Iris make quick work of laying out the food, gabbing all the while.

Joe comes alongside Tony to ask, “So Barry tells us you have a new job.” 

Tony’s brow furrows at the mention of Barry--a tile in his brain trying to work loose as a memory. He’s not sure who Joe’s talking about but he says, “Yeah--old friend of mine started a brewery, told me to apply. Certainly beats the iron works.” 

Joe snorts. “I remember that sort of work. Anything beats that.” 

They take their seats and divvy out the Chinese food. 

“I didn’t know you did iron work, Dad,” says Iris, as she takes a bite of dumpling. 

“Not quite steel work, but I worked a lot in construction,” says Joe. He stares at his chopsticks for a minute and then asks, “Baby, did they give you any forks?”

“I’ll take one of those too, please,” says Tony, who has never eaten much Chinese food, and so has never had to practice eating with chopsticks. 

Iris produces two forks with a smile. “Oh, what Luddites we live with,” she says. 

“Actually I think we would be the Luddites in this case,” says Beatrix. Joe, Iris and Tony just furrow their brows. “Because forks were invented after chopsticks--at least I’m pretty sure they were.” 

“Okay...” says Iris.

“And, you know, Luddites are people who are resistant to newer technologies,” says Beatrix. “So...we’re the Luddites for using chopsticks. Because they’re older than forks.”

Tony chuckles and kisses her. “Please never change.”

Beatrix rewards him with a smile and another kiss. 

“So, Tony, you got a last name for your background check?” Joe asks, as he cuts up a dumpling. 

Tony freezes a little. “Ah well, you’ll probably find a few arrests on there. But I haven’t--nothing’s happened for years, I promise.”

Joe leans back in his chair, eyes a little hard. “And what would I find on these arrests?”

Tony was never scared by principals. He never understood why some losers got scared when they got called up. Now Tony completely understands, because he wants to wriggle into a hole just to get away from Joe West. “Um, there was one for petty theft. One hit and run. A drunk driving arrest. There was an aggravated assault.”

Beatrix takes his hand underneath the table and give it a squeeze. 

“To be fair,” says Tony, because for some reason he can’t stop talking. “The other guy got arrested for assault, too.”

“And what did this other guy do?” Joe does not look impressed. 

“He, ah...” Tony’s never told anyone about the stuff his dad did. He doesn’t know if he can start now. “He hit me first,” says Tony, because it’s true, but it also doesn’t go that deep. 

“Joe, not right now, please,” says Beatrix. 

“Did you know about this?” Joe asks turning to her. 

Beatrix must be used to this, because she doesn’t so much as flinch. “Yes. We’ve been together for 7 months, Joe. We’ve talked about all of this.”

“You know, you can lose your job for associating with a known criminal,” says Joe. He says it casual, without a trace of anger or guilt. But it’s there. 

Beatrix stares him down like a champ. “Joe, he’s had a couple of arrests--he’s not a member of the mob. There’s plenty of social servants, cops included, who are friends with and are related to people with arrests and criminal records. And do you really think Captain Singh is the type to get up in my face over a couple of drunk and disorderlies? Or the DA for that matter?”

Joe huffs, defeated for a moment. After chewing on a dumpling he turns back to Tony and says, “I never did get that last name.” 

“It’s Woodward,” says Tony. He feels a little too much like he’s standing in front of his father right now, and so he knows that it’s not going to be let go of until he gives Joe what he wants. 

Now both Joe and Iris freeze. 

“Wait, like Tony Woodward from Hamilton Elementary?” Iris asks. 

“Yeah...?” Tony says, wondering what they could have against underfunded elementary schools. 

Iris’ jaw drops. “Oh my god.” She turns to Beatrix. “You’re dating your childhood bully?”

“What?” Tony looks between all three of them. “I’m not her childhood bully.” 

Now Beatrix blinks at him. “Um...you kind of are?”

“No, I’d never even met anybody named Beatrix until I met you,” says Tony. 

“Uh, does the name Barry Allen ring any bells?” Iris asks as Joe stands and begins to pace around the lab. 

“Yeah,” says Tony. Now, bullying Barry Allen, he remembers. It occurs to him now that he’s not proud of how he acted in elementary school. It also occurs to him that Joe called Beatrix “Barry” earlier and at last all of the puzzle pieces lock into place. He turns to Beatrix, jaw on the floor, realizing for the first time why she looked so familiar when they met. “You’re Barry Allen?”

“Yes,” says Beatrix. Her eyes are getting a little bright like she might cry. “But I thought you knew--back when we were in Coast City--I told you my last name and you just laughed it off.”

She had. But he hadn’t know that she wasn’t just Beatrix Allen, but she was Barry Allen as well. 

“Barry, what the--why are you with someone that did that to you?” Joe asks, pausing in his pacing to address his daughter. 

Beatrix looks at him, but Tony throws up his hands. “I’m with him on this one. I hurt you, Trix. I made your life hell. How could you stay with me after knowing that?”

She does start crying now, but only a few tears before she answers. “That weekend we spent in Coast City--that’s when I realized who you were. It’s why I dropped my last name. And do you remember when we got back to the hotel what I asked you to do?”

Tony’s face burned, and he can’t believe they’re gonna talk about this in front of her family. He still says, “You asked me to spank you.”

Joe mutters, “I really don’t need to know this.” He turns away.

Beatrix pulls him back by saying, “You instigated this. And yes, you do need to know.” She takes Tony’s hands in hers, her eyes meeting his and refusing to let go. “We agreed that you would spank me fifteen times. You stopped at twelve.”

“Yeah,” says Tony. He remembers it just fine. 

“Why did you stop?” Beatrix asks. 

“Because.” He frowns at her. “Because you were crying. And... And I couldn't make you cry.”

She squeezes his hand in hers. “That is why I'm still with you. You are not a bully anymore, Tony. And once I knew that, I was able to forgive you and move on with our relationship.” She pauses for a moment before she says. “I am sorry that I kept this from you. I didn't mean to but I'm sorry all the same. I hope you can forgive me, too.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” says Tony. It’s him, it’s him. “Okay so I don’t hurt you now, but what are you gonna do if I snap one day? What if I just haul off and hit you one day?”

“Tony, I work at a police station,” says Beatrix. “You’d be in lock up within the next couple of hours.” 

“Damn straight,” says Joe. 

So that’s that, then. Beatrix trusts him, which is more than anyone else at the table can say. 

No one feels much like eating after that. Beatrix walks Tony out, but he can’t bring himself to kiss her goodbye. She doesn’t push for it, but instead asks, “Will you wait for me at the apartment please?” Beatrix holds out a key to him.

Tony frowns. “I don’t want to loose your key.”

“It’s your key actually,” she says. “I was going to ask you to move in with me. But after tonight--please, I just want to talk with you. I’ll be home as soon as I finish up with this case, okay?”

Tony says okay. He walks to his truck and drives to her apartment. He slips in the key and it fits the lock perfectly. The apartment is dark, quiet, lonely. Out of habit, Tony goes to the fridge to pull out a beer. His fingers hover over the glass bottle neck for what must be minutes before he releases it and let’s it tumble back. The bottle doesn’t fall, but spins in place while it settles.

He wants a drink. Scratch that--he wants to get drunk. 

Instead, he finds himself on the porch, settled in on one of the wicker chairs. He stares up at the moon and the dark skies. He watches clouds as they cover the light and then float on. Tony waits, letting the cold March air numb his skin. A shiver creeps up in him when a blanket falls over his shoulders. He turns to see Beatrix standing behind him, a blanket wrapped around her as well. “I thought you were still working a case?”

“I finished,” she said. “Took me over an hour, but I did it. Joe gave me a ride home. Have you been out here this whole time?” 

Tony looks at his watch. It’s after nine. “Yeah, I guess I have,” he says. Tony isn’t sure how to explain so he says, “When I was 18 my mom threw herself off a highway overpass. She got run over by a semi-truck.”

Beatrix gasps and her eyes widen a little, but she stays quiet.

“I, uh, I saw her that morning, she gave me this envelope of money that she had been squirreling away for years. She told me to go visit my aunt in Metropolis. Get a job out there. I didn’t understand what she meant really. The next thing I know my aunt’s calling me telling me they pulled her off the road. The whole aggravated assault thing happened at her funeral. 

“My Dad showed up--her whole family asked him not to, but he did it anyway. I told him he was the reason she was dead, and he was. That’s when he hit me. And so I hit him back. One of my uncles called the police to get him out of there, but my dad wanted to press charges, so I got arrested, too.”

Tony stops for a second, because he’s choking and he can’t breathe. Beatrix squats down in front of him, saying, “Breathe with me.”

She breathes slow, and every few breaths she breathes even slower. Tony’s still crying, but he’s not choking anymore. Beatrix looks up at him. She’s trying to keep her face as blank as she can, but still still twitches as she smooths out her her brow and the frown at her mouth. 

“He beat her,” says Tony. “He beat her every day that I can remember. He never touched me, because she never let him. But when I was 18 and out of the house she...she...” 

Beatrix wrapped her arms around him. He wants to cry. He doesn’t. 

“I need you to know something,” he says instead. “But I don’t know how to explain.”

“It’s okay,” she says. 

“When...when we were kids and your dad...” He pauses thinking about how she always insisted her dad was innocent. “When your mom died: I kept thinking that my mom was going to be next. Every time I looked at you, I thought about the bruises on her face and how he would hurt her. I kept thinking one day the police would show up at my house and I would have to go to my mom’s funeral and my dad would beat me, and there would be no one to send him to prison. I was mad--crazy--because you got lucky when the Wests took you in.

“And I still have that anger inside of me, Beatrix. All of that rage and...and--” He can’t bring himself to say how sad he still is over the whole thing. That his mother lost years of a life to live before she ended it. That she had probably been long dead before she jumped in front of a semi. And then before he knows it, Tony’s sobbing again. 

Beatrix holds him. She says nothing, doesn’t make false promises or assumptions. Instead, Beatrix holds him and strokes his hair, humming softly in his ear. 

Tony has never told anyone these things. And so when he tells her the floodgates open up and can't keep them back anymore. He cries and cries. Beatrix doesn’t move for a second. 

The moon, Tony sees when he’s able to stop crying, has crested over the sky and is well on its way to setting. It’s late. He shouldn’t be keeping Beatrix up so late when he know she has to go to work early. Hell, Tony has to be to work early. 

They don’t make any move to go inside, though, for a long time after he stops crying. Eventually, they shift positions so that Beatrix is in his lap, her back resting against her chest. Tony feels warm enough, blanket around him, Beatrix against him, but the occasional chill still creeps up inside of him. They should go inside, he thinks as his eyes begin to droop. 

They sit for a good while longer. 

“We should go inside,” says Tony, as he catches himself nodding off. 

“Okay,” says Beatrix. She takes a minute, but she slides off of him and helps him to his feet. They head inside and it’s much warmer than outside, to the point where Tony wonders how cold it really was. Normally they would shower but tonight they just strip off their clothes and climb into bed. The clock reads 1:40. “‘M gonna have to call out tomorrow,” says Beatrix. 

“Hmm,” says Tony in reply as they curl up into each other. Before he falls asleep, one last thought strikes he and he can’t help but asking, “Beatrix, will you really have me arrested if I ever hurt you?”

“Yes,” says Beatrix.

“Good,” says Tony, right as he falls asleep. 

Tony wakes up to Beatrix on the phone. He must have slept through the alarm, because he hears her saying, “We were up pretty late last night, so we just need some time to get some sleep. Yeah he might come in a little later--I know I’m probably going to get called in for some scene or another. Alright. Thanks, Naomi. You, too. Bye.”

He opens his eyes to see Beatrix sliding into bed with him and resting her head against Tony’s chest. “G’morning,” says Tony. 

“Morning,” says Beatrix. “Go back to sleep.”

Tony doesn’t quite do this. While he’s not asleep he feels like he could drift off at any moment. Tony can tell he’s out of it, though, because drawing patterns in the goose flesh of Beatrix’ back seems like the most entertaining thing ever, and he can’t open his eyes unless he really, really tries. Eventually he must fall back asleep, because when Beatrix slides out of bed and begins to make some coffee he’s finally able to stay lucid for more than 5 seconds at a time. 

He sits up in bed, blinking to water his eyes. Tony looks toward the tiny kitchen where Beatrix is pouring two cups of coffee. She added some honey to both and stirs them up before bringing them to bed. 

“Good morning,” she says, kissing his cheek and passing him a cup. 

“Good morning,” he says. The clock reads 10:30. Tony would have normally been up four or five hours ago. “We slept late, huh?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I called out for both of us.”

“Should we place bets on _when_ Singh will call you in later today?” Tony asks sipping on his coffee. 

“Naw, I prefer to be surprised.” She smiles at him, and the smile waivers for a single second when she asks, “Are you okay, honey?” 

Tony doesn’t know. He tells her this. 

“Tony, I’m not going to leave you over this,” says Beatrix. “I want you to know that.” 

“You should,” says Tony. “I still really can’t believe you’ve stayed this long. Even if I weren’t your bully.”

“I meant what I said last night, you know,” she says. “It wasn’t just for Joe and Iris’ benefit, it was for you too., I believe you have changed.”

“I don’t,” says Tony. “I really--I want to. But I feel like there’s this person inside that’s going to burst out at any second. Like in Alien or something. And that’s who I really am--the guy that’s going to hurt you and put you through hell. And I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Beatrix leans over and kisses him. “You know, I don’t think I can convince you of something you don’t want to believe,” she says when she pulls back. Beatrix combs down his stray hairs with her fingers and kisses him again. “But I see a very different man from the one you think you are. You keep saying you think you’re going to hurt me--but in the eight months we’ve been dating, you’ve never laid a hand on me. Well, if I haven't asked you to. My point is, I don’t know that I can change your mind. But I believe you’re a good man. And I’m going to keep believing that until you prove me wrong without a shadow of a doubt. And I just need you to know that.” 

Tony shakes his head--and he can’t help the smile that comes across his face. “You know something I don’t get?”

“What’s that?” Beatrix asks, smiling back at him.

“I don’t know what the hell I did to deserve you,” says Tony. “I really don’t.” 

“If I have to spend the rest of our lives convincing you that you really, really do,” says Beatrix, “I will.” 

Tony takes her coffee cup and his. He sets them on the bed side table, before he turns back to kiss his girlfriend senseless.

Not for the first time, he remembers something his mother once told him: grace is getting something you don’t deserve. Tony has never felt more full of grace than when he takes Beatrix in his arms. 

As he pulls her shirt over her head he asks, “Hey, when we have kids, what do you think of naming one of them Grace?” 

“You wanna have kids with me?” Beatrix asks. Her smile makes her glow--Tony is now positive that she is going to look amazing when she’s pregnant. 

“Been thinking about it,” says Tony. He kisses her belly and looks at her through his eyelashes. 

“I like Grace,” she says. “What was your mom’s name?” 

Tony stiffens at the question but answers, “Aurore.”

“Aurora Grace has a nice ring to it, don't you think?” 

Tony knows he is not a man who deserves Beatrix Allen. But when he kisses her he knows he wants to be everything she believes he can be. He wants to be the man that will be a good father to her children, a good husband that doesn’t end up in prison or hated by them for the rest of their lives. He doesn’t think he can be these things for those people, but damn him if he’s not going to try. He’ll be that man if it takes him the rest of his life. 

“Of course,” says Tony finally, “we’re probably going to name the boy Joseph.”

“Henry,” says Beatrix. “I’m leaving Joseph for Iris if she wants it.” 

“Henry and Aurora,” says Tony. He wraps his arms around Beatrix and pulls her into his lap so she can straddle him. “Well we’ve got the names, all we need is the babies.”

Beatrix laughs. “Maybe we should get a house first, too,” she suggests.

“Alright, we need a house, we’ll need cribs. We’ll probably need some more money while we’re at it.”

“Well, between the two of us we make almost sixty-thousand dollars a year,” says Beatrix. “And if you move in, we can start saving for a house, because you won’t be paying rent anymore.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Trying to con me to move in so we can eventually provide for our future children. How naughty of you, Ms. Allen.”

“Oh, you know me,” says Beatrix rolling her eyes. “I’m just so conniving, Mr. Woodward.” 

“Hey,” says Tony, talking as soon as the idea comes into his mind. “I have an idea for another name.”

“What’s that?” she asks. 

“Anthony Allen,” says Tony. 

Beatrix nibbles her lip thinking. “I think I like that--using my maiden name as a middle name--”

Tony laughs. “No, babe, I mean for me.” 

“You--you wanna take my name?” Beatrix asks, her eyes going wide. 

“Yeah.” Tony’s so startled by this proposal that he laughs at himself. “Yeah, I think I do. Anthony Allen sounds way better than Anthony Woodward anyway. Don’t you think?”

“I think Anthony Allen sounds amazing.” She laughs and kisses him, and then they’re too busy to talk.

Predictably right as they’re really about to get going, the phone rings. 


	4. Family is Bigger Than You Think (or, Easter Sunday and Anniversary)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost finished! Sorry for the late update, I've been trying to update every week, but I keep forgetting.

Tony’s friends from work help him move his belongings over to the apartment. Iris says she’ll stop by if she can, but doesn’t end up making it, due to getting caught up with homework. Beatrix tries to be fine with it, as they eat some admittedly delicious burgers that Marc grills on the tiny patio. But she’s really perturbed about how Iris is taking this. Joe she expected--he’s the epitome of an overprotective dad. But Iris? Iris is supposed to be the one person that knows her best. 

Naomi, who must be psychic, pulls her out for a walk while the boys turn on the game. 

“Why are you going for a walk?” Tony asks. 

Naomi only pats her belly. “To make room for beer and jalapeño poppers. They’re in the oven, by the way, pull’em out when the timer beeps.” 

To Beatrix, when they get out on the pavement, she says, “Alright, agony-aunt time. What’s up?” 

Beatrix laughs a little. “You know, I really need to take you to dinner or the movies or something, because it seems like every time we hang you, you play my agony-aunt.” 

“I will not say no to either of those things. Now spill.” 

So Beatrix talks. About the fallout from the Tony-as-her-childhood-bully thing, how she and Tony have mostly gotten over it, but how Iris and Joe seem to be holding a grudge.

“Well, babe,” says Naomi. “They’re your family, and they want what’s best for you. On paper ‘dating-your-childhood-bully’ does not look like the best thing ever.”

“I know, it just feels like...” Beatrix huffed and blew her hair out of her face. “It feels like not only don’t they trust me, they think I’m stupid or something. And intellectually I know they don’t think that. But it’s like, as afraid as I was of Tony when we were kids and as much as I hated his guts back then, can’t they see that I probably have some damn good reasoning for staying with him?”

“Well, as an objective outside party that only met you a few months ago,” says Naomi, “I know that Tony’s not some abusive psycho. But abusers take all kinds. He could have you brainwashed for all they know, after all.”

“I know,” says Beatrix, with a small huff. “Sometimes, I would just like them to take me at my word.” 

“Well, if you two get married like you think you will they’ll have to accept it eventually,” says Naomi with a small shrug. “Just, try to be patient. Let them see that Tony is the man you say he is.” 

They take another lap around the building, talking about this and that, before they return inside. The boys have already devoured half the jalapeño poppers, but there’s still some left for Beatrix and Naomi. Beatrix eats four while downing a beer, perched atop Tony’s lap. 

Beatrix is mostly just trying to go on with life. She wakes up next to Tony, they have breakfast, they go to work and they come home. They both have various overtime schedules due to the brewery being a new company and people just walking in and out as they please--and well, even without working every weekend, Beatrix can’t avoid being on call all the time. 

They get an invite from Tony’s family to have Easter dinner in Keystone. Beatrix checks in with Joe to see if they’re doing anything. When she gets a no, she figures it’s about time she met Tony’s aunts and uncles and cousins--especially after the disastrous dinner with Joe and Iris. So they drive up when Beatrix gets off work on Saturday and they pull into Tony’s aunt and uncle’s driveway sometime after eight. 

Zara Giordano is tall like Tony and has a warm smile. She greats Tony with a quick hug, before she descends on Beatrix with something of a bone crushing embrace. “Oh! It’s so good to meet our Tony’s young woman. I see you’ve been feeding my bambino. It’s good he has a woman to keep track of him. Who knows what might have become of him otherwise?”

Abel Giordano is a picture of what Tony will probably look like in 20 years--he’s not stout but his image is rounded, soft lines, with some fat here and there. But the height, the face, and even the muscle is all Tony. “Leave the poor girl alone, Zara. She’s not used to smothering.”

“I do not smother!” Zara insists, hands on hips when she releases Beatrix. “Have you two eaten?”

“We haven’t had a chance, Zia,” says Tony. 

Zara apparently likes this answer, and proceeds to reheat a plate of dinner for them both. Zara asks Beatrix about everything--where does she work, what’s her family like, does she go to church? “I know Tony only goes on holidays,” she says, pinching her nephew’s cheek. 

Beatrix does not, in fact, go to church very often. It mostly stems from her church politely but forcefully kicking her out after her mother died, and from there having a bit of a crisis of faith. She tells Zara that since she started as a CSI she works a lot on Sunday since crime doesn’t rest, and she prays a lot while she works. Zara likes this answer. 

After a long dinner, she and Tony collapse into their borrowed bed. Tony’s a little horny, but Beatrix feels weird having sex in a bed given to them by his aunt and uncle. He pouts but let's her jerk him off. 

Easter Sunday finds Beatrix awoken early by Zara. “Go shower,” the auntie orders. “Then you can dress and I’ll do your hair.”

Beatrix yawns but obeys. She has a quick shower and then goes to wake Tony up before getting dressed and heading downstairs. There are already a large group of Italians fixing food in Zara’s kitchen, and more of them out in the back yard setting up places for everyone to eat. Zara sits Beatrix down, hands her an espresso, and then begins tugging on her hair. As near as Beatrix can tell she braids the hair and then pins it up in into a spiraling bun. 

Tony, dressed in a dress shirt tie and suit pants, descends and presses a good morning kiss to her mouth saying, “You look nice.” 

Tony looks very nice too. Beatrix feels bad, because she just wants to get him out of his full suit (waistcoat and all) once he has it on. Even when they’re in mass, she’s just thinking about getting him naked and riding him into oblivion. Beatrix can feel her panties getting wet and she wonders if that means she’s going to hell. 

When she starts to fidget in mass, Zara pats her knee and whispers, “We’re almost done, my dear.”

That makes Beatrix feel even worse. 

Yet, she can’t bring herself to ask Tony to sneak away when they leave the church or at any point in Easter lunch. “You okay?” Tony asks at one point, squeezing her knee with his hand.

“I’m fine,” she says, feeling herself flush even as she does. 

“You sure?” Tony asks. He’s running his hand up and down her thigh in an attempt to be soothing, but it’s just driving Beatrix crazy. “You’ve been kind of jittery all day long. You wanna take a walk?”

“Sure,” Beatrix says, letting him pull her to her feet. 

Beatrix is a little confused when their walk ends with Tony pulling her through the side door of the house. He grins as he kisses her, his mouth invading hers, sending a pleasant warmth all throughout her body. When Tony pulls away he asks, “Do you think I don’t know what you look like when you’re horny?” 

His hands are running beneath Beatrix’s skirt. Tony chuckles as he runs his fingers along her underwear. “My, what wet panties you have. Have you been thinking about me all day?”

“Yes,” says Beatrix, trying not to whimper. “Come one, let’s not do this in your aunt’s laundry room.”

“Okay,” he says. Tony removes his hands from her and leads the way up a back set of stairs. They make it to the room they slept in last night without running into anyone, and Tony locks the door behind them. He’s already unbuttoning his vest and shrugging it off with his suit coat as he says, “Take off your clothes--I’m going to end up ripping them if I do.” 

Beatrix unzips her dress shimmying out of it and hanging it up to avoid any wrinkles. Tony is similarly laying out his clothes as she strips out of her underwear and makes herself comfortable on the bed. Tony joins her a minute later, naked and hard. There's little preamble--apparently, they’ve been making foreplay all morning. She can’t seem to stop moaning, no matter how much Tony shushes her gently. Most everyone should be outside for lunch right now, but they probably don’t want to court trouble.

At last, Beatrix realizes she’s not going to be quiet, and turns over, pushing her face into the pillow. Tony gasps when she does this. Beatrix knows it must look pretty tantalizing to have her ass and pussy presented to him like this. Tony takes it well in stride, only taking a few seconds to admire the view before he grips her by the hips and slides back in. He’s a little more frantic now, but Beatrix really doesn’t care. She’s about to embrace a cliche of begging for it harder and faster, but Tony gives it to her good. 

Besides, Beatrix is really too busy moaning into the down pillow to beg for anything. 

Tony finishes quicker than he normally does, but it really is fine because he holds her in place and eats her out with her face still stuffed in the pillow. Beatrix is honestly still a little horny when he finishes, but she feels better than she has all day. 

She rolls over and Tony flops down next to her. 

“You know,” he says, licking his lips. “That’s the first time we’ve had sex in almost three weeks.” 

“Really?” Beatrix asks. She slips one arm under her neck and one arm around Tony’s waist. 

“Really,” says Tony. He pulls her more flush with him, their naked bodies rubbing up against one another. “I’ve been keeping track.” 

Beatrix has to laugh a little at this. “You’ve been keeping track?”

“Not like in a weird way,” says Tony with a little shrug. “I just mean that for the past three weeks we keep getting interrupted or we’re both tired when we get home. I’ve just...noticed, I guess.” 

Beatrix kisses him long and slow. “Well, when we get home tonight, we can go at--really go at it.” 

Tony hummed, kissing her back. “That sounds amazing,” he says. Then he sighs and sits up. “For now we should probably get dressed and get back to lunch.” 

She agrees, even though Beatrix thinks that she could probably go another few rounds as well. Something to look forward to tonight, she supposed. 

They get dressed and slip out the side door, going once around the block before coming back, just for authenticity’s sake. Just as they’re getting back to the group, her phone rings. Beatrix slips it from her pocket to see Joe’s picture up on her screen. “Lemme take this,” she says to Tony. 

He kisses her temple, murmuring a quick, “Alright,” before he heads to the backyard. 

“Hey, Bar,” says Joe when she picks up the phone. “Iris and I are gonna go get lunch. You wanna tag along?”

“I would,” says Beatrix. “But I’m in Keystone with Tony. His family invited us up for Easter. We’ll be back tonight though--we’re gonna leave not long after we finish lunch--if you wanna do dinner or something like that.” 

There’s a pause on the phone. “Bar,” says Joe at last. “I don’t...I don’t really know how to tell you this, hon. I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Okay,” says Beatrix. 

“But, ah, I’m not all that comfortable with Tony being around for family events.” 

Beatrix sighs. It actually comes out as more of a huff. “That’s okay, Joe. But I have something I need to say that you might not like to hear.” 

“Okay,” says Joe. 

“It’s okay if you’re not comfortable being around him. It _is_ okay if you need time to adjust to Tony. But if things continue as they are, I have every intention of marrying Tony. So, I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around this whole thing and it took me a little while to work it all out myself. But Tony is going to be a member of my family. So eventually, you’re going to have to stop excluding him from everything.” 

“It’s not gonna be that simple, Bar,” says Joe. “People don’t just change. I don’t know if I can trust him, and if I can’t trust him I can’t like him.”

Beatrix rolls her eyes. “It was ten _years_ ago, Joe. People can change after ten years. But I’m not gonna defend him to you, he doesn’t need me to. I’m just stating a fact that if you’re gonna ask me to choose between the two of you, I’m gonna do the best I can not to. But if you keep pushing it, you may not like the choice I make.” 

There’s a long pause at the other end of the phone. She can hear Joe breathing, though, so she knows he hasn’t hung up. At last he says, “You do what you feel like you have to do.”

“Okay,” she says. “I love you, and I’ll see you at work.” 

“See you there,” he replies. “And I love you too, Beatrix.” 

She stares at the phone after she ends the call. “You only call me Beatrix when you’re upset,” she murmurs. 

Slipping her phone back in her pocket, Beatrix wanders back into the yard. Tony’s entertaining some of his younger cousins, and Beatrix stands back and watches him for a bit. Zara comes over to join her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “What’s wrong, bambina?”

Beatrix shakes her head. “Just… just a call from my dad. He doesn’t really approve of Tony.” 

Zara wrinkles her nose. “And what, exactly, does he dislike about my nephew?”

Beatrix explains, the best that she can. Zara, for her part, just nods along with Beatrix’s description of Tony as a child. And she keeps nodding as Beatrix explains her frustration. “They don’t have to be best friends or anything,” she ends up saying. “But I’d like it at least if Joe would give him the benefit of the doubt. Get to know him for who he is now, instead of who he was as a child.” 

Zara is quiet for a minute before she says, “You know, there are some people in our family who don’t approve of you because you’re not Catholic. They also don’t approve of you and Tony living together before you are married. But they don’t see the wonderful woman you are. How you compare very, very favorably to some confirmed Catholic girls our boys have brought home in the past. They don’t see how you’ve brought out the best in Tony.

“Your father may have trouble seeing that for Tony as well. But he will, bambina. Give him time.” 

Beatrix is a little surprised at Zara’s willingness to play devil’s advocate for Joe. But deep down she knows the auntie is right--if only Joe wasn’t going to take so long in deciding that Tony was alright. She holds out her arms to Zara and the two of them embrace, Zara rubbing her back and crooning in her ear. “It _will_ be okay, Beatrix. Just you watch,” she says.

They drive back to Central City around three, make it home around five. They make love in their shared bed, call out for a late pizza. 

Later Beatrix lies in bed thinking about the whole thing. She wonders just how much time Joe and Iris will need. She supposes, in the end, it doesn’t matter because they have all the time in the world. 

She nudges Tony and asks, “Hey, do you wanna go meet my dad?”

Tony opens his eyes and asks, “Thought I had?”

“My dad-Dad, not Joe-Dad,” says Beatrix. “Not tonight, obviously, because visiting hours will be over, but sometime this week, or something like that?”

Tony gives a slow, sleepy smile. “Yeah, I think that would be great.” 

Tony blinks and it’s summer again. Between meeting Henry for the first time--

(as an adult, at least, because he remembers meeting Dr. Allen when he was younger once and the man came to get Beatrix from school when the two of them had gotten into a fight. He had checked both of them over, and asked what they had been fighting about, and he seemed like a nice guy. 

Beatrix had taken him to the prison in April, and Henry had smiled when meeting him. “You were a lot shorter the last time. I hope there haven’t been any more fights between you two?”

“Just over what to have for dinner or what to watch on tv,” says Beatrix by way of a joke.

Henry gives her a bit of the stink eye.

“I’m treating your daughter right with everything that is in me,” Tony told him.

“That’s good to hear,” said Henry. “Beatrix needs someone who will treat her right, so I’ll hold you to that, Tony.”)

\--working more hours at the brewery, possibly toward a promotion or a raise or a something, and between the two of them talking about marriage and working out family issues, Tony almost doesn’t realize that it’s nearly their anniversary until maybe four weeks before. 

Having never made it to a one year anniversary, he has no idea what to or what to get her. 

“You should make her dinner or something,” says Marc. “Clean the apartment.”

Naomi rolls her eyes at this suggestion. “Completing domestic labor that should be equally distributed on a regular basis does not count as a present. Beatrix is the sort of person who will appreciate the small things, Tony. Also, she’s a nerd, so don’t count that out. If you want, I can give you some ideas for presents.” 

“Please,” says Tony. Because he’s not above begging. 

Naomi forwards him all of these links to websites she likes to frequent. She and Beatrix are friends on social media, so she has a good idea of what the other woman likes as far as taste. “But you may want to get the okay from her sister. Iris seems to know her best.” 

And there’s something Tony dreads. He knows Iris doesn’t like him. She really has a perfectly good reason not to like him. But when he finally finds something he thinks Beatrix would like, and isn’t super expensive, and can arrive within a few days, he still tentatively sends out a text. 

[Can I ask you something?] he types out on his lunch break. 

She doesn’t reply, though Tony obsessively checks his phone. As he’s heading home he sends a picture of the gift and asks [Do you think that Beatrix would like this for our anniversary?]

A moment later, there’s three dots at the bottom of his screen. Iris types back [Your anniversary?]

[One year at the end of June] he says.

[Oh] she says, and then adds as a separate text [that seems to run to Beatrix’s taste. Make sure to get a long chain, though, because she hates the short ones.]

[Thank you, Iris]

[You’re welcome.]

When the necklace arrives, he stops by a decent jewelry store and gets a longer chain that matches. They even gift wrap it for him for two dollars more. 

Even though Naomi says that division of normal domestic labor is not a gift, Tony gets off early the day of their anniversary and cleans the apartment and makes dinner. Beatrix is a little late getting home, but not overly. 

“Hi,” she calls out into the apartment. 

She’s already half naked when she peeks into the kitchen--it’s been in the 80s lately, the sign of an early summer--where Tony is making them salad of spinach leaf, breaded chicken, eggs, tomatoes, avocados and all the fixings. “What’s the occasion?” she asks as she goes to the closet to hang up her work clothes and slip into a summer dress.

“It’s a surprise,” says Tony. He takes their plates to the patio, and then pulls out a bottle of wine. As he pops the cork, Beatrix grabs some glasses, and then leans over to kiss him. 

“I like surprises,” she murmurs on his mouth. 

“I’m glad,” says Tony. 

He pours her a glass of wine and himself a glass of beer and they head out to the patio. They talk about their days, and this and that, but as she polishes off her salad, Beatrix asks again, “So, what’s the surprise?”

Tony laughs a little and pulls out the jewelry box from his pocket. “Happy anniversary,” he says, handing it to her.

Beatrix gets the dopiest grin on her face as she takes the box from him. “Babe,” she says. “You remembered.” 

“I sure did,” says Tony, watching her open the box. 

She pulls out the necklace of the full moon with a little gasp. “Oh, Tony… it’s wonderful...”

“Iris said that you’d like the longer chain,” he tells her, as she slides it over her head without unclasping it first. 

Beatrix laughs a little. “She’s right. I hate the short stubby chains that come with most necklaces, but this one is perfect.” She leans over to kiss him. “Thank you so much, this was very thoughtful. Ah, which reminds me.” Beatrix hops up from her chair and pads into the apartment. He hears her rummaging around in a drawer before she comes back with a small box similar to the one he gave her.

Tony raises his brows at the box, but accepts it from her and opens it. Inside sits a well loved, but well made watch. 

“I didn’t know if you’d like it or not,” she says. “But it was my Grandfather's--my mom’s dad. And when she and my dad got married, he gave it to my dad. And Dad wanted you to have it, and I agree.” 

Tony’s not much of a crier, but Beatrix and Henry’s gesture means a lot to him, especially with as hard as Joe and Iris have been with him. Tony completely gets it, he does, but it’s still rough when your girlfriend’s family kind of hates you, even for a good reason. So, yeah, he’s a little moved to tears--sniffling to try and get rid of them.

Beatrix, perched on his lap, helps him fasten the band around his wrist. Tony holds her face in his hands, the watch catching his eye as he kisses her. Beatrix moves gently in his lap, kiss him back, low and slow. 

Tony is not a smart man--well that’s not true. He can learn something if he wants to. But with books and school, all of that never really interested him, so he never learned much. He’s learned to brew, how to help run the business, how to do what needs to be done, when he needed to. But all that symbolic nonsense they tried to cram into his brain about blue cars and cains and yellow flowers, Tony never got that.

He still likes the symbolism of it all--the necklace Tony gave Beatrix hanging over her heart. The watch she gave him sits on his wrist never out of his line of site. The thought turns over in his mind as they make love in their bed that night. That she’s forever on his mind and he‘s forever on her heart. Even as an uneducated man, Tony sees the poetry in it.

After their anniversary, Beatrix gets a text from Iris about a week later. 

[Hey, do you wanna go to dinner sometime this week? You and Tony?]

The text surprises Beatrix. She knows that Iris was as keen on hanging out with Tony as Joe, so she wonders what brought about the change. Still she texts Tony, who responds with an [Okay?] She waits a few minutes and then he adds to their conversation, [Can Naomi come?]

Beatrix thinks this is a good idea, because nobody buffers like Naomi. She texts Iris who responds with [Sure!]

And just like that they have a dinner and a movie date planned between the four of them. 

They go to one of Iris and Beatrix's favorite sushi joints that Naomi also likes because Tony's never had sushi but he's curious. Iris meets Beatrix at the station to drag her away from work and when they get to the sushi joint Naomi and Tony are waving them over to a table they've already settled into. 

There are pleasantries and introductions, and surprisingly Tony starts the conversation with, "So I heard they're almost done with that particle accelerator they're building downtown."

"Yay, science fiction irl," says Naomi, sipping on her water. 

"Trix is just excited to see the thing turn on," says Tony. 

And hear Iris rolls her eyes with a fond smile. "Oh boy, she's been talking about that since they opened STAR Labs and Harrison Wells mentioned like a sentence about it in a press release."

"Well, it is going to expand everything we know about science," says Tony with a grin of his own. 

Beatrix pouts. "Naomi," she says. "They're picking on me." 

“Children, be nice to Beatrix, she can’t help her nerdery.”

They chat back and forth, getting to know one another as adults and it’s civil if still a little uncomfortable. Naomi suggests they all catch this new geeky b-film showing at the art house theater, and they all agree because no one’s quite ready to go home yet. 

After the movie things seem to go well, well enough that Iris suggests they head out to a bar. 

And then before she knows it, Beatrix gets a call to process a scene. When she checks the clock before she picks up she sees that it’s almost two in the morning. “Hi, Captain!” Beatrix says into the receiver, wincing at how high pitched her voice sounds. 

“Allen...” Captain Singh says. “Wasn't expecting you to be awake. Where are you?”

“Out with friends,” says Beatrix. 

“And have you been drinking?” he asks.

“Why, yes, officer, I have,” says Beatrix. “But I’m not drunk or anything.”

“Doesn’t matter, can’t do this job under the influence,” says the Captain. “You weren’t on call though, so you’re not in trouble. Jimenez came down with the flu, though so I thought I would see if you were available. Drink water and we’ll see you Monday.” 

“Good night, Captain,” says Beatrix. 

“You know, even with them not calling you every single weekend, you sure get called a lot,” says Tony. “Do we really have that much crime in this city, or do the other CSIs just not work?”

“Probably both,” says Iris. “So Singh did stop you from working every weekend then?”

“Right around the time I started dating Tony,” says Beatrix. “I’m still on call, just not as often and I don’t get called in nearly as much.” 

“Well, cheers to that!” says Iris as she raises her glass. 

They don’t close down the bar, but it’s a near thing. They have Tony’s truck with them, but they decide to leave it at the bar and come get it tomorrow when they’re not as drunk. Iris and Naomi split a cab and Tony and Beatrix hop in the back of one, directing him toward their apartment. Tony pulls her in for a long, slow kiss in the back of the cab, and Beatrix almost doesn’t care that the cabbie might be watching them. 

Thankfully, her boyfriend doesn’t get any more frisky in the back of the cab, and they pay the man when they arrive at the apartment. The elevator bank is empty, and here Tony can’t keep her hands off of her. He presses her against the back of the elevator and kisses her. Beatrix wraps her arms around him, and almost brings her legs up to wrap around him. She manages to restrain herself, at least enough to push him out of the elevator when the door opens and down the hall to their apartment. 

Tony crowds her against the door after they lock it tight and goes to suckle at her neck. Beatrix thinks if she’s not about to come, she’s awfully damn close. “Tony, baby, please,” she whines, as Tony grabs at her hips, his fingers digging into her buttocks. 

“Gonna go slow with you tonight,” Tony croons in her ear when he can draw his mouth away from her neck. “Gonna give it to you so good,Trix.” 

“Please, Tony,” she begs. “Tony, fuck.” 

Tony pulls at her panties. Beatrix is reasonably sure that he rips them in order to get them off, but he gets them off. He pulls his pants open and pushes inside of her. “Oh my god, Trix, fuck you feel so good.”

Beatrix thinks so, too, but currently, she’s too caught up in panting and moaning to really say so.

Tony fucks into her, and God, it’s so good. They’ve stopped talking and focused more on fucking each other, and kissing, and touching. Beatrix thinks that being tipsy makes this feel so good. So fucking good--so good--so good--so good--

“Oh fuck,” says Tony, as he thrusts inside her. He stops, slamming home as he cums.

And that’s when Beatrix realizes that he’s not wearing a condom and he’s cumming inside of her. In a weird way it feels really good--the cum is hot and sticky and swirls around inside of her. On the other hand--holy shit! He just came inside of her! 

“Ohh...” Beatrix groans. “Baby, you came inside of me.” 

“M’ sorry,” says Tony. He rests his forehead against hers as they pant and come down from the high. “I’ll clean it all up.” 

Still holding her up, he carries her over to the bed, and drops her onto the mattress, such that Beatrix feels herself bounce. Tony rucks up her skirt and presses his face into Beatrix’s cunt. Beatrix squeals as he suckles on her clit and then dips his tongue inside of her to lick out his cum. Tony places his hands on her thighs, pressing them into the mattress, because Beatrix can’t stop her legs from kicking out at the feeling of his mouth and his tongue making her feel--feel--feel...

Beatrix cums, cums hard, the orgasm pressing her back and opening her up, and Tony is still buried between her legs. He licks and sucks and Beatrix cums again too soon. Her pussy begins to ache with too much--too much--too much. “Oh god, oh Tony, oh Tony...oh baby, please, I can’t cum again. Tony, please?”

“Are you clean?” Tony asks, before he buries his face again.

Beatrix, on the edge of another building orgasm, can’t think of what he means. But she chants, “I’m clean, I’m clean,” over and over again. Finally it dawns on her that he’s talking about his cum, and as she orgasms again she says, “Oh yes, it’s all gone, you got it all, oh yes Tony, Tony!” 

As she cums again, Beatrix feels her body tense--like she suddenly weighs 1000 pounds. She sinks into the mattress and Tony crawls on top of her for a kiss. They kiss, even as Tony’s arms buckle and he flops down beside her. Beatrix feels herself falling asleep as they pull away from one another. She doesn’t remember when she nods off.

When Beatrix wakes up she’s still too relaxed to panic. She has a plan already in mind. Step 1: take pain killer for small headache and drink a glass of water. Step 2) take a bottle of water and walk down to the pharmacy that’s two streets down from her apartment building. Step 3) Procure some Plan B and take it. Step 4) Walk back to the apartment and, baring that she receives any phone calls to come in for crime scenes, go back to bed.

She she takes some Tylenol, leaves a note for Tony on the fridge and heads to the pharmacy. It’s a simple process, even if the pharmacist does sigh and shake her had a little too much for Beatrix’s taste. Beatrix just notes down the woman’s name and ID number and decides to report her later. She takes the pill before she leaves, swallowing it down with a gulp of water from her bottle, before she walks back up to her apartment. 

Beatrix opens the door and sees Tony’s still asleep on the bed. She grabs her note from the fridge and tosses it into the trash. Cuddling up to Tony, she wakes him up with small kisses along his jaw. He groans when he wakes up. “You wanna go out for breakfast?” she asks.

“Sure, just as soon as I figured out what died in my mouth,” says Tony. He barely has his eyes open, but he rolls over to kiss her cheek. “Also, I think something died in my head too.”

“I’ll get you some water,” she says, kissing his cheek in return. 

As she bustles around the kitchen Beatrix feels oddly calm. She supposes she should be worried--after all, she could be pregnant even after the Plan B. But, instead she feels light. And when her period comes a week later, the only heaviness she feels is the disappointment on Tony’s face. 


	5. The End (or, the Beginning?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Beatrix move forward with life after their potential pregnancy. Then life comes for them.

Tony blinks and months have passed since Beatrix’s possible pregnancy. Tony knows they weren’t ready for a kid, but it still stings. It was drunk accident, him coming inside of her, but still--Tony wants to have a baby with Beatrix. They’ve got time--Beatrix just turned 24 and he’s only 25, so they’ve got time for Henry and Aurora--but... If Tony could get pregnant himself, he would. If that’s what it took, he would.

Beatrix knows he’s upset, but he thinks for the first time in her life she’s at a loss for words. She doesn’t really know what to say because she’s working as a CSI, all day, most days and sometimes weekends. She has her share of night shifts, and late nights even when she’s not on the night shift. It would change Beatrix’s whole life to get pregnant and have a baby. Tony knows it would change hers more than his. She’s told him about how her mother quit being a detective so she could stay home with Beatrix.

Tony doesn’t know what to say either. He doesn’t know that he should be telling her that he’ll change the diapers, he’ll pick up and drop off the kid from school and daycare, he’ll stay home with their kid if he has to. He knows the goons at her precinct make her miserable, too. But Tony also knows why Beatrix stays.

“Can I ask you something?” he says apropos of nothing, one Saturday morning in September when they’re out on the patio making the last use of it before autumn really sets in.

“What’s that?” Beatrix says, crossing her legs and settling into her chair.

“What was the worst night of your life?”

Beatrix pales a little. She licks her lips and she fidgets in her seat. “Tony... Tony, don’t you know?”

Tony knows what the worst night of her life was. He’s known for a while. But something in him needs to hear about this part of her past, so he can understand their future together. So he tells her, “Could you tell me, please? I’ve never heard it from you. I want to hear it from you.”

Beatrix nods. She still doesn’t speak for a few minutes, and even after that there are a few false starts of her opening her mouth and closing it. Beatrix licks her lips again.

She speaks, “I was ten. I remember falling asleep to the sounds of my parents talking and moving around. I woke up to a crash downstairs. I remember watching the water rise out of the fish tank. I ran downstairs to tell my parents and in the living room there was this...whirlwind of lightning and my mother was in the center.

“She called out to me just as I saw her fall over. In the next second I was ten blocks away. I ran home as fast as I could but when I got there, they were taking my dad away and when I went inside...” Beatrix breaks off when choked sobs force their way from her throat. Tony moves to get up, but she pushes back on the sobs, forcing them down and continues. “She was just staring at me and she was so pale and cold. Joe pulled me away, but her face, her eyes... I will never forget how she looked, Tony. I never could.”

Beatrix looks up at Tony, her eyes burning. “He didn’t kill her, Tony. My father would have never hurt my mother like that.”

“I believe you,” he says. And he does. But the question is not if he believes her or not. The question is if he can accept that after all this time, Beatrix believes her father is innocent. And it sounds like she wants the whole world to believe that as well. So even after all this time, Beatrix is still fighting for her father’s case. Tony doesn’t know that she’s going to stop. He knows he wouldn’t ask her too.

He reaches out for her and pulls her into his arms. Tony strokes her hair and says, “Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for believing me,” says Beatrix, into his chest. “It means a lot.”

Tony does not know if he’s going to figure out at this very moment if he can live with this, this feeling there’s something more important to Beatrix than he is. For now he holds his girlfriend and decides he’ll think it through. Beatrix is the best thing that has ever happened to him. He would hate to lose her because of his pride.

Time passes. Tony and Beatrix spend weekends together (when neither of them is working that is). They talk about marriage about being together--about moving into a bigger place when Beatrix’s lease is up. They have sex--still a lot but not as much as they did when they first got together. Tony... Tony finds that his mind often doesn’t focus on Beatrix’s quest for justice. Mostly he focuses on the now and that seems to work. He still feels like he should talk to her about this. About how it makes him feel, because if it ends up being too much one day it doesn’t seem fair to start talking about it just then.

But still, how do you tell the woman that you love that her quest for justice makes him feel like he doesn’t matter? The very thought makes Tony drown in his own selfishness--which is probably worse than feeling like he doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t really come up again, not until December. Tony has almost forgotten his feeling of unimportance when Beatrix comes home one night with something on her mind. He can tell by the way her face is screwed up.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“There’s this case in Starling City,” she says, kind of slow. “It’s...somebody ripped a steel door of it’s hinges at Queen Consolidated. I want to go investigate.”

“So...you need to go on a work trip?” Tony asks, with his eyebrows furrowed. “Should I box up your supper?”

“Kind of? I mean, it’s not officially a work trip. Singh said I could go and offer to assist, but just offer. If they take me up on it, I can do whatever to help. Are you really okay if I just take off? The next train to Starling leaves in like an hour so I kind of have to go now.”

Tony laughs. “I’d kinda be upset if you called me from the train. But it's cool. Chasing crimes is kinda your thing. And you were cool when I went on that trip with Naomi and Marc. So pack a bag. I'll get your supper.”

Beatrix grins at him and goes to the closet to grab a small suitcase from the top shelf. “I thought you’d be weirded out that I’d go chasing a case like this. Joe and Iris always are.”

“Joe and Iris are weirded out that you’re finding opportunities to do your job?” Tony asks from the kitchen where he’s boxing up the spaghetti that he made.

“Well, just the really weird cases, like men ripping off steel doors and everything like that,” says Beatrix as she folds a few changes of clothes into her suitcase. “Joe more so than Iris--he’s never liked me investigating the really weird cases.”

“Why? Cause they’re dangerous?”

“Well, and to quote him, he doesn’t like it when I chase the impossible.”

Tony pauses, the proverbial light bulb going off over his head. “Oh. Your dad.”

“Yeah,” she says with frown. “He’s...I love Joe, but he’s never believed me about what happened.”

“So...so... You think this case has something to do with your mom?” Tony asks. He holds out the box of spaghetti to her as she snaps the suitcase closed.

“Not quite,” she says, taking the box with a kiss to his lips. “But, I just...I guess I feel like if I can prove one impossible thing--just one--I can prove that the impossible happened to me. You know what I mean?”

“I think so,” says Tony. He kisses her, holding her face in his hands. “Love you, Trix.”

“Love you too, Ton,” she says.

“Lemme drive you to the train station,” he says, grabbing his coat and keys. Beatrix grabs her suitcase, kit, and the box of spaghetti and eagerly follows him out the door. They get to the station in all of 10 minutes, which means that Beatrix kisses him goodbye long and slow. Tony has to kick her out of the truck so she won’t miss her train.

He sits there for a while after she leaves, thinking about this feeling of not mattering, of feeling selfish. He wants to call Beatrix and ask if she’s going to keep doing this for the rest of their lives--when they get married, when they have the kids. Will she keep chasing the impossible 5 years from now? 10? How long will she keep going to prove her father’s innocence.

Instead, Tony texts her [safe travels baby]

[thank you, love you!] she texts in reply.

Beatrix texts him that morning when she gets into the station in Starling. She sends little things throughout the day, how it’s going, how she met this girl named Felicity who’s awesome, and how she met Oliver Queen, who is decidedly less so. The second day she is a little more radio silent. For some reason, that means Tony’s not able to sleep. He tosses and turns all night and finally at four in the morning gives up on staying in bed.

Tony goes for a run, but his mind his still weird when he comes home and collapses on the couch. Finally he calls Beatrix, prepared to apologize if he wakes her.

Predictably, she doesn’t pick up the first time, but the second time she picks up on the second ring. “Hi, babe,” she says, sounding very awake but with her voice slightly strained.

“Hi, honey,” he says. “Did I wake you? Or were you pulling an all nighter?”

“Um, all nighter--this case doesn’t want to quit. Sorry we didn’t talk much yesterday. It was a helluva day.”

“Police there in Starling can’t possibly ride your ass more than the ones in Central, right?” he asks.

“Oh, no, it’s not that, it’s just there’s so much to go over--evidence, leads, stuff like that,” she says. “Besides, Queen Consolidated commandeered me a bit to give me room to work on the case since the SCPD wouldn’t have really had the time or resources to work this case as fast as QC would like.”

“So it’s Oliver Queen who’s riding your ass,” says Tony. “That’s...pretty hot actually.”

Beatrix chokes. “Please don’t say things like that.”

Tony grins as he can tell that she’s blushing. “Well, you should just know, baby, that I think you’re a whole lot sexier than he is.”

He swears he hears Beatrix squeak. “Uh, Tony, baby, now’s not a great time?”

“What’s the matter?” Tony asks, feeling a grin creeping up on his lips. “You out in public? Or are you just not wearing anything?”

Beatrix sputters a little and says, “You’re on speaker phone, Tony!”

That sets someone off in the room snickering, and Tony can’t help himself, he starts laughing too.

“Don’t laugh, you ass!” Beatrix tells him.

“Ooo, do I need to wash someone’s mouth out?” Tony asks, still unable to contain his laughter. “Or maybe you need another spanking?”

“You’re still on speaker,” says a voice that is not Beatrix.

“Well, take me off speaker already!” says Tony, a deep full belly laugh still bubbling up from inside of him.

“This is not funny, Anthony Jeremiah Woodward,” says Beatrix.

“It’s only funny ‘cause I’m not there, Beatrix Nora Allen,” Tony says. “Am I off speaker now?”

“Yes, you are,” she says. “Listen, Ton, I gotta get back to it. But I love you, even though you’re a jerk, and I’m gonna try to make it back into Central tomorrow, okay?”

“Alright. I love you, too--call me if you’re gonna be late, alright?”

“Oh, I won’t be,” says Beatrix.

“Why not--oh wait, that’s right the particle accelerator turns on day after tomorrow, doesn’t it?” asks Tony. “And we can’t miss the science-changing-event-of-the-century.”

“That, and I miss you,” says Beatrix.

“I miss you too, babe,” he says. “Make it back safe.”

“I will. I love you. Bye.”

“Love you too, bye,” he says.

Tony hangs up the phone and, despite being majorly sleep deprived, he can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

Beatrix remembers to check in more often after that. She ends up getting back in the next morning, but has to head straight to work.

[we gonna meet up at star labs or at the precinct?]

[prolly precinct. Mardon bros showed up and i’m still running samples from the scene.]

[kay. Iris coming?]

[so she says. See you tonight?]

[See you tonight. Love you.]

[Love you, too.]

“Hey Tony.” Tony looks up to see Marc striding toward him.

Tony slips his phone in his pocket. “Sorry, man, Beatrix just got back into town. We were just checking in.”

Marc waves him off. “No worries. Listen, Brandon, one of our new hires is having some trouble with his old boss at the Iron Works.”

“Nothin’ illegal, I hope?” says Tony.

“No, nothing like that,” says Marc. “The boss is threatening to throw out some personal stuff of Brandon’s. I told him that I’d go over there with him tonight after work to see about getting it back. He, ah, he’s told me some things about the foreman’s--let’s say managing style.”

“Oh, you mean his goons,” said Tony. Tony remembers them--the guys that were paid to stand around and look menacing so that everyone did their work and so that the cons didn’t get any smart ideas about giving any shit to the foreman.

“Yeah, and well, listen, I’m all for helping him, but I’m just kinda nervous of going with just the two of us. Do you think you can ride along with us? I’d feel better having more people along.”

Tony hems and haws. “It has to be tonight?” he asks.

Marc nods. “It has to be tonight. Brandon says the foreman’s threatening to throw out his stuff otherwise.”

Tony scrubs his hand over his eyes. “Man, Beatrix is gonna kill me. But, yeah, I’ll go along.”

Beatrix posts enough sad face emojis that Tony steps out to call her when she’s on her break. He apologies at least three times, and explains the whole thing.

“You know,” she says after he explains. “You playing the hero is kinda sexy.”

Tony grins. “That so?”

“That’s so. It’s okay if you don’t make the accelerator being turned on. Just be safe, okay? Don’t get into any fights.”

“Do I get any prizes if I don’t?”

Beatrix laughs. “Yes, you’ll get a real hero’s welcome when you get home tonight. I mean it though, Tony. Be careful, okay?”

“I’ll be careful--and I’ll see you at home tonight.”

“I love you, Tony,” she says.

“I love you too, Trix. I love you more than anything in the world.”

“Sap,” she says, but he can hear her smile.

Later, Tony will be glad that this is the last thing he says to her.

After work, Tony, Marc, Brandon and Naomi pile into Naomi’s SUV, which she trusts no one to drive but herself. “Besides,” she says. “Someone has to call the police when you three don’t check in after ten minutes.”

It’s said as a joke. They all laugh.

They make it to the Iron Works, just as Beatrix texts him that she helped stop a mugger, but missed getting in to see the particle accelerator turn on. He texts her back a sad face emoji that will make her smile and says that they’re going inside. Expect a call from Naomi if they don’t come out within ten minutes.

[That was her joke wasn’t it?] she asks.

[Spoil sport.] he tells her.

They get out of the car and head into the building. Brandon’s locker still has his lock on there. He unlocks it and tosses his stuff, mostly pictures, into the box he brought with him. The lock goes in last, and Brandon closes the locker with a satisfying thud.

“Should we tell the foreman that we got your stuff?” asks Marc.

“Shit, I don’t care,” says Brandon.

“He’s right, Marc, Iet’s just leave.”

They had to come in by crossing the floor and have to cross back across the floor because the exit doors to the locker rooms have long since rusted shut. But someone’s up on one of the walkways, and Tony hasn’t been gone long enough that he doesn’t recognize the man’s silhouette in the shadows. “That you, Crosby?” the foreman asks.

Tony knows he should keep his mouth shut. But he just can’t resist saying, “Just a ghost.”

He doesn’t see the goons until they grab for him.

Marc and Brandon gape and gasp, and like the smart fuckers they are, take off running. They probably think Tony’s gonna break free and follow after. Tony thinks so, too, but three on one is never good odds.

The goons drag him up to the foreman’s office. The foreman just rolls his eyes. “You shit heads, you grabbed the wrong one.”

“Shit,” says one of the goons. “Should we let him go.”

“S’ppose I got a bone to pick with Woodward anyway--you know you’re the reason we’re shutting down you little shit? I got too many people walking out my doors because you went and got yourself a fancy new job and bragged to fuck all about it.”

Tony doesn’t remember it like that. Still he stays quiet. Doesn’t help to talk in these sorts of situations. So he braces himself, and the first punch doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as he remembers.

“Now you can let him go,” says the foreman. “C’mon Woodward, get up, let’s see if you hit as well as you think you do.”

Tony stands but he doesn’t fight back. Instead, he’s looking for an exit. Which is why he doesn’t see the second punch coming.

It catches him all wrong--he doesn’t know if he stumbles or if the floor is slick so he slips. All Tony really knows is that he goes over the rail. The goons cry out as they watch him go down and the last thing that Tony sees is a bright light flooding the iron works before he hits something. In the light he sees Beatrix’s light and her soul. He sees her smile, and thinks of the future they were going to have together.

Tony’s pretty sure he dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end?

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a culmination of a couple of ideas I've had rolling around in my head. One, of course, is that Barry and Tony meet up before the events of the Flash, don't recognize each other, and start dating. Another is a 63 universe (though, not everyone is swapped, other characters will be). There are other ideas, certain re-workings, other pairings that will come into play, but I don't want to spoil you. So I won't. 
> 
> Shout out to Daughter_of_Scotland, who was an amazing muse and beta for this project.


End file.
